
Qass^U^D. 



BookJEl£L2L 



Correspondence of the 
Reverend Ezra Fisher 

Pioneer Missionary of the American Baptist 

Home Mission Society in Indiana, 

Illinois, Iowa and Oregon 



Edited b\f ^ 

SARAH FISHER HENDEiSON 
NELLIE EDITH LATOURETTE 
KENNETH SCOTT LATOURETTE 



,7^-3 



'/, 




X' 




'G 



/4 



EDITORS' PREFACE 



The letters here given to the public were written by the 
Reverend Ezra Fisher to the American Baptist Home Mis- 
sion Society. Their publication was planned by his youngest 
daughter, Mrs. Sarah Fisher Henderson. She collected the 
letters, had them transcribed, and with the assistance of 
Miss Latourette had done part of the editing before her 
death. In her will she provided for the completion of the 
work. Her executors entrusted this to Miss Latourette and 
Mr. Latourette, who have tried to carry it on in as close 
accord as possible with her original pi^ns. These included 
a life of Mr. Fisher, such occasional changes in the text of 
the letters as would make them more clear, and notes of his- 
torical explanation. The life is the work of Miss Latour- 
ette. The emendation of the text was begun by Mrs. Hen- 
derson and Miss Latourette and was completed by the latter. 
These emendations seemed to Mrs. Henderson desirable in 
view of the conditions under which the letters were com- 
posed. They were written under the most adverse surround- 
ings of frontier life, amid frequent distractions and without 
opportunity for revision. Certain minor rhetorical and 
grammatical errors inevitably crept in which the author 
would, with his usual care in such matters, have corrected 
had he had the opportunity. It is to make these corrections 
that the emendations have been designed. They have been 
slight, have in no instance altered the meaning, and usually 



have been indicated. Omissions, also indicated, have been 
made of occasional phrases, sentences and paragraphs. The 
historical notes are the work of Mr. Latourette. 

The editors w^ish to express their heartiest appreciation 
and thanks to those who have helped make this work pos- 
sible, especially to the officers of the American Baptist Home 
Mission Society for the loan of the original manuscripts ; 
to Mr. George H. Himes, of the Oregon Historical Society, 
for frequent and ungrudging contributions from his rich 
stores of information ; to Mrs. Ann Eliza Fisher Latourette 
for her constant interest ; to the executors of Mrs. Hender- 
son's will, Mr. L. E. Latourette and Mr. R. W. Fisher; and 
to the editors of the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical 
Society for their kindness in offering its pages to the initial 
publication of the larger part of the letters. 



e 






THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR 



Ezra Fisher was a native of New England. He was a 
descendant of Anthony Fisher, who came from Syleham, 
County Suffolk, England, in 1637, and settled at Dedham, 
Mass. Here at the beginning of the Revolution lived Ezra 
Fisher's grandparents, Benjamin and Sara (Everett) Fisher. 
Five of their sons answered the call to arms of April 19, 
1775. Six of them served later in the war, the eldest dying 
of camp fever at Ticonderoga. s^ 

The youngest, Aaron, was in Captain Asa Fairbank's com- 
pany at the Lexington alarm, it is said, when but seventeen 
years of age. He afterward served in the regiments of Col. 
Ephraim Wheelock, of Col. Carleton and of Col. Rufus Put- 
nam, most of the time v^^ith rank of sergeant. During the 
war he was married to Miss Betty Moore and, at its close, 
they removed from Dedham and settled on a farm near 
AVendell, Mass. Here it was that Ezra Fisher was born, 
January 6, 1800. 

His environment was that of the average New England 
boy at the beginning of the last century. In the home of his 
parents were few luxuries and much hard work, but there 
was a fireside where God was worshipped, the Bible read, 
religion and education discussed and a vital interest taken 
in the affairs of the State so lately formed. Like other boys 
of his day, he was privileged to learn, from the generation 
who had desperately struggled for them, how the civil liber- 
ties of that State were won. Unlike most bovs of his time, 



6 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

he learned from Baptist parents the meaning of religious 
liberty. They themselves had been forced to contribute to 
the support of the established church and could relate sad 
tales of the various persecutions which had harassed their 
denomination in New England until at least 1799. 

All the early years of his life were spent on his father's 
farm. The knowledge of farming there obtained and later 
supplemented by reading along that line served him well as 
a pioneer, as did also an unusual ability to turn his hand to 
many things. To the hard conditions of his life on the farm 
he doubtless owed not only the latter talent, but his tireless 
industry and his ability to endure hardships. In spite of 
health which was never rugged, these qualities were his to 
a marked degree. 

From the common schools near his home, he gained suffi- 
cient education to begin teaching at the age of eighteen. At 
the same age he was converted and united with the Baptist 
church in Wendell. Out of the religious life which followed 
came the conviction chat he ought to preach the gospel, and 
with it, the resolution to fit himself thoroughly for the work. 

With no other aid than his own, he struggled nearly twelve 
years to carry out this purpose. His preparation for college 
was received in part from a nearby academy, but progress 
was slov/ because of much time necessarily spent in teaching 
and in work on the farm. Severe sickness also hindered him. 

He was admitted to Amherst College in 1822. That insti- 
' tution had opened its doors only the year before for the 
purpose of educating "poor and pious young men for the 
ministry." Here among many with similar aim to his own, 
he found the opportunities he sought. Although a good 
student, working his way meant long absences while teach- 
ing, and another illness, which was all but fatal, left him 
much weakened in health, so that his graduation was de- 
layed until 1828, when he took his bachelor's degree with a 
class of forty, twenty-three of whom were preparing for the 
ministry. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHKR. 7 

The following year he entered Newton Theological Semi- 
nary, where he studied until January, 1830. He then ac- 
cepted a call to the pastorate of the Baptist church at Cam- 
bridge, Vermont, and was there ordained to the ministry, 
January 20, 1830. 

On February 7th of the same year he was married to Miss 
Lucy Taft, of Clinton, N. Y., but formerly of Wendell, Mass. 
Shortly after the wedding they departed in a sleigh for Cam- 
bridge, Vt. They had known each other from childhood, and 
their marriage was the consummation of an engagement 
which began two years before his entrance to college. 

In February of the next year he entered upon his second 
pastorate at Springfield in the same state. His work of 
nearly two years in this place resulted in the conversion and 
baptism of about eighty persons. From Springfield Ezra 
Fisher wrote, under date of September 22. 1832, the first 
letter of his correspondence with the American Baptist 
Home Mission Society. That Society had been organized 
the preceding April, and while it inch Yied in its scope the 
whole of North America, it was religious destitution in the 
Mississippi Valley which gave it birth. 

Western need of the gospel had appealed strongly to both 
Mr. and Mrs. Fisher. In sympathy with the Home Mission 
movement from its beginning and feeling that New England 
claims upon them were small as compared with those of the 
West, they had early decided that, if the Lord should open 
the way, they would gladly serve Him "in some destitute 
portion of the Great Valley." 

Their wish met with the approval of the Home Mission 
Society. Dr. Jonathan Going, first Corresponding Secretary 
of the Society, on a visit to their church in Springfield, had 
encouraged them to go to the Valley the coming fall. Hop- 
ing at the time that they might do so, Ezra Fisher wrote 
the first letter to inform him that they felt unable to leave 
the church in Springfield until the next spring or fall. Late 
in October, however, came a letter from Indianapolis, Ind., 



8 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

asking Air. Fisher to come immediately to that place, and 
assuring him that the Home Mission Society would furnish 
him an outfit and support him there. The Springfield church 
having released him, he at once made ready to go. 

On the twelfth of November, 1832, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher 
bade goodbye to their friends in Springfield and, with their 
little daughter, began their first journey westward. Stopping 
only for a visit of a few days with Mrs. Fisher's parents in 
Clinton, N. Y., they were five weeks on the way, not reach- 
ing Indianapolis until the 22d of December. He at once be- 
gan work at a salary of three hundred dollars a year, fifty 
dollars having been allowed him for outfit. His appointment, 
voted by the Board, November 8, 1832, made him one of the 
first missionaries of the American Baptist Home Mission 
Society. 

With his arrival at Indianapolis, his own pen takes up the 
account of his life and work and continues it almost uninter- 
ruptedly until 1856. It is the story of how he strove to place 
the leaven of the Kipgdom of God within the developing life 
of the Mississippi Valley, of how he journeyed by ox team 
to the Pacific Coast to perform a like service for Oregon, 
and of how he did indeed labor in Oregon amid many dis- 
couragements to set in motion the forces which make for 
effective righteousness. For the most part, only the outlines 
of what he "himself has written would be in place here. 

While the purpose of his correspondence was primarily to 
give the Society an account of his own work and of the Bap- 
tist cause where he labored, he does much more than this. 
He describes the country, its places, the life and conditions 
of every field he occupied, suggests, often with prophet's 
vision, bases for future operations, gives a comprehensive 
view of American expansion westward and at least touches 
upon nearly every event of importance connected with the 
earlier history of the Pacific Coast. 

The church in Indianapolis was a chaotic one of fifty-five 
members. Thev had no articles of faith and their beliefs 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 9 

were almost as varied as the places from which they had 
come. Most were opposed to the support of the ministry. 
They had no Sunday school and many did not believe in the 
institution. 

In their association of fifteen or sixteen churches, he knew 
of no church which had preaching more than one Sabbath a 
month and there were but two ministers who devoted much 
time to their calling. Probably the majority of Baptists 
throughout the state had little or no sympathy with the 
benevolent societies of the denomination.. 

His efforts were chiefly confined to his own church. He 
preached, however, when possible, in neighboring places and 
visited sufficiently among the churches of the state to keep 
informed of their needs. He assisted in the organization of 
the General Association of Baptists in Indiana in 1833, and 
of a state Baptist Education Society in 1835. 

At the close of his pastorate in Indianapolis, March 22, 
1835, many discouraging conditions remained, but the church 
was in harmony, had a Sunday school of ninety or more 
members, and would, he believed, furnish half the salary 
of a minister the next year. 

Ezra Fisher continued to make his home in Indianapolis 
until April 12, 1836, the last year acting as agent of the 
American Sunday School Union for Indiana. Because of a 
wish to work directly for the Baptist denomination, he de- 
clined the invitation to serve another year. and. because his 
health would not admit of the sedentary life, he also refused 
a position as the head of Franklin College, soon to go into 
operation at Franklin, Indiana. 

Under commission of the Home Mission Society, he again 
went west, this time to Quincy, 111., to take charge of a 
church of nine members, worshipping in a small school room. 
He arrived there May 4, 1836. For the first year only his 
time was divided between the church at Quincy and one 
called Bethany at Payson. ten miles southeast. 

Supported but in part by the Society, during most of his 



10 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Slay of three and a half years, he was able to live, to use 
his own words, "only by uniting industry and economy with 
sell-denial." When the brave little church at Quincy was 
building, he cheerfully taught school to make up the deficit 
in his salary, and, at the end of that year, wrote: "This 
church is truly becoming one of the most pleasant churches 
in the land and will soon become one of the most desirable 
situations for an efficient preacher in the whole West. . . 
When God in His providence shall indicate to me that this 
place demands another than a frontier man, if my health and 
that of my family permit, I hope once more to take a fron- 
tier post." The church had forty members at the time he 
left it. 

He had hoped to go to Texas in the fall of 1839, but, 
disappointed in this, he went at that time to Iowa Territory. 
So far as is known, there is no record of why he did not go 
to Texas or of his first year's work in Iowa, save that he 
preached for a time at Bloomington. now Aluscatine. and 
also at Wapsipinikie, now Independence. In serving these 
places, it is likely that he devoted considerable time to ex- 
ploring and endeavoring to relieve the general field. 

In 1841, when he again takes pen to report his movements 
since November, 1840, we find him the only Baptist minister 
in a region "from twenty to fifty miles in width, extending 
from tlie mouth of the Iowa river up the Mississippi to the 
mouth of the Macoquetois (Moquoketa) and thence up that 
stream some ten miles above its forks." His station was 
Davenport. 

In endeavoring to relieve the destitution, he travelled dur- 
ing the quarter ending December 10, 1841, seven hundred 
and fifty miles. Through all that part of Iowa Territory and 
across the river at Rock Island, 111., and neighboring points, 
his was a familiar figure for more than five years. He 
preached the gospel, made religious visits to hundreds of 
homes, took a leading part in organizing the Baptist work 
in the territory and in organizing temperance societies, gave 



REVEREND EZRA FI5KEE, 



maajr addresses cm the snbfects of tesnjierance and ot Snndas.y 
schools and secared ntuneroits sigaatares lo zht temperance 
pledge. 

The larger part of bia time was given zo -he churches :a 
Davenport and in Moscatsne, Ac latter chtirch having oeew 
organized by him October 31, 1841, It wra* while living in 
Muscatine in 1843 that he {banned to go tr> Oregon die ic4- 
lowing year. 

Feeling that the opportunity of visiting relatives aad 
friends would not again be tbetzi^ Mr, and Mrs, Fisher, with 
their three children, spent the summer asid fedl oi^ 1843 in the 
Ea^t. It was their first trq> back since ooim^ to the Mis- 
sissippi Valley nearly devoi years before. At die ead of 
the long journey from Iowa, dteir little dasg^tter asnoonced 
their arrival at the home of her gnadparcats in Xew York 
by exclaiming, "O gnatdpat^ weVe come to stay all nig^" 
Their youngest dzngbter^ ^z- '■-— 4ttiiag the visit there. 

Leaving Xew York i:^ iH they reacfaea Daven- 

port, la., December 15, 'r vme all the way by team. 



Under appointment of tii^ 
expecting to go to GN^egon : 
began preaching to xarvrt* 
port, travellii-g idiat qn ^ 
miies. 

Unfavorable reports 
reached him. Some of the 
Israelitish spies of Can^- 
anticipating the OregDr. 

The uncertainty of ge 
and the unsettled cood: 
reasons, led Ezra Fidie- 
1845. He was tfaereHoT' 
in., and Mt. Pleasaat, 
!^ !«^5. at the close c: 



Mission Society, and stiE 

- :S44, Ezra Fisher 

r?ach of Daven- 

twenty-eigjit 



"Stf 



soon 
t the 





- ,' 




- - i 




'. ~ 


tast. 


•Jn March 


. : 


O :-- 



I Jlfterwatds Mes. Sor-. 



12 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Home Mission Society, he received his commission to labor 
in Oregon. 

Early in April, Ezra Fisher and his family set out from 
Rock Island, 111., on their journey of more than twenty-five 
hundred miles to the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Going into 
rendezvous at St. Joseph, Mo., they left that place the middle 
of May. To their joy they soon afterward overtook, or were 
overtaken by Rev. Hezekiah Johnson and family from Iowa, 
whom they had expected to accompany them, but had given 
up. The two men had been closely associated in organizing 
the Baptist work in Iowa. x\t the solicitation of both, Heze- 
kiah Johnson had also been appointed by the Home Mission 
Society a missionary to Oregon. A salary of three hundred 
dollars^ for one year from the time of their arrival in Oregon 
had been advanced to each of them. 

Like the rest of their company, the two missionaries and 
their families experienced none of the extreme sufferings 
which fell to the lot of many who travelled the Oregon Trail, 
and of some who that year departed from it. So far as known, 
the worst Indian depredation in the family of Ezra Fisher 
was the cutting off of the brass buttons on his son's round- 
about. But there were trials in abundance and their share 
of the very real suffering and danger which were a part of 
crossing the plains to Oregon. 

One of their trials was the disregard of the Sabbath, which 
they not only felt to be wrong, but which prevented their 
accomplishing as much in a religious way as they had hoped. 
Except in a genuine emergency, such as lack of water, or of 
feed for the cattle, on the Sundays when their company in- 
sisted upon travelling, the missionaries would tarry behind, 
have family devotions, rest and overtake the main company 
late in the evening. 

About half of the Sabbaths were observed at least by 
halting. On these occasions, one of the three ministers of 



1 See letter of March 22, 1845. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 13 

the company would preach, a wagon usually serving as a 
pulpit. 

At The Dalles Ezra Fisher preached his first sei"mon in 
Oregon from John 3:16. Here the missionaries camped and 
built a flatboat. They were out of provisions and obliged 
to pay eight dollars per hundred pounds for flour and six 
dollars for beef. Dried salmon, bought of the Indians, was 
generally a substitute for the latter. 

Some of the party, Ezra Fisher among them, brought the 
cattle and horses down the Indian trail on the north bank of 
the Columbia. On the flatboa't, laden with their wagons and 
other possessions, including a skiff for use in catching their 
flatboat below the rapids, the rest of their number embarked, 
and thus came to the portage at the Cascades, where they 
camped in a drenching rain. 

Their boat, which was set adrift to go over the Cascades, 
lodged in the rocks amid-stream and all efforts to dislodge 
it were in vain. In their extremit}^ they sent to Dr. Mc- 
Loughlin for aid. With his usual kindness, he sent them 
a bateau. 

At the Cascades, or, it would seem more likely, at a later 
camping point, those who had come down the north bank 
joined them. They were wet and in a nearly famished con- 
dition. Ezra Fisher and his son^ had been living for the last 
day or two on a daily half-pint of milk, and a little wheat 
which they had in 'their pockets. Hot biscuits^ were a never- 
to-be-forgotten luxury of their repast that night. 

Continuing their journey in the bateau, the party arrived 
at a point near Linnton on or near the sixth of December. 
Here the two families separated, Hezekiah Johnson and fam- 
ily continuing up the river to Oregon City, while Ezra Fisher 
and family, piloted by Edward Lenox, went to Tualatin 
Plains. 



1 Ezra Timothy Taft Fisher. 

2 Throughout the journey, the family baking had been done with the aid of a 
tin reflector, which stood on four legs, was bent so as to form a hood and enclosed 
at the sides. From the front, baking pans were slid into place along grooves. 



14 CORRESPONDENXE OF THE 

In the log cabin of David T. Lenox, well known as cap- 
tain of the first company to reach Oregon in 1843, they 
found shelter from the rain and cold. It was the same cabin 
in which had been organized, on May 25, 1844, the first 
Baptist church west of the Rocky Mountains. It was about 
eighteen by twenty-two feet, and had a "lean-to." Although 
the family of David Lenox numbered thirteen and the "lean- 
to" was occupied by a widow and three children, with the 
utmost hospitality the six new arrivals were made welcome. 
Togther the three families spent the remainder of the winter, 
all making the best of their cramped quarters. 

Each morning the bed, which had been spread out on the 
puncheon floor, would be rolled up in the bufifalo robes which 
had seen duty on the Plains. They did their cooking over 
the stick fireplace. This was simplified because of a lack 
of materials with which to cook. They were without flour, 
milk, butter or eggs, and their only meat was the game 
which they were able to kill. Boiled wheat, occasionally 
served with molasses, potatoes and dried-pea cofifee, were 
their chief dependence. They had, besides, dried peas and 
turnips. 

In the evening they would gather around the fireplace, 
seated, for the most part, on benches or blocks of wood and, 
by the light of a pitchy knot, Ezra Fisher would read the 
words for the children to spell. On Sunday evenings he. 
would conduct a Bible class. 

Upon their arrival at the home of David Lenox, Mr. and 
Mrs. Fisher and their eldest daughter had at once united with 
the little church which had been organized the preceding 
year and of which Rev. Vincent Snelling, of the immigration 
of '44, was pastor. This was at West Union, six miles north- 
east of what is now Hillsboro. During the winter Ezra 
Fisher provided for his family, travelled up and down 
the Valley, going nearly as far south as the Luckiamute 
River, acquainted himself with conditions and needs, and 
preached every Sunday but three. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 15 

In the spring, when David Lenox moved his family into 
a new log cabin, Ezra Fisher rented the old one and condi- 
tions became more comfortable for all. The following sum- 
mer he taught a term of school, kept up his preaching each 
Sabbath, superintended a Sunday school of twenty-five 
pupils, and, when Rev. Vincent Snelling moved to what is 
now Yamhill County, became pastor of the West Union 
Church. During the few months of his pastorate there were 
ten or twelve conversions. 

Believing that near the mouth of the Columbia lay the 
point which would become of first commercial importance for 
Oregon, and that no other place except Oregon City was of 
more immediate consequence, he moved to Astoria in the fall 
of '46. That part of Oregon had then its share of settlers, 
at least one other denomination was beginning an eft'ort 
there and the outlook for steady growth was most encourag- 
ing. 

Throughout the winter he preached every Sunday but, with 
only two American families in Astoria besides themselves, 
his field of usefulness was limited. Most of his time for two 
months was occupied in building the house wdiich for man> 
years served as Astoria's postoffice and which has often been 
pictured as a landmark of the place. It was made of shakes, 
split with a frow, and was built entirely from one big tree, 
a portion of which remained unused. 

Their privations and discouragements that year were great. 
They had received neither word nor remittance from the 
Home Mission Society since leaving Rock Island, 111. They 
had no mail and very little reading matter. Their first home 
was a log cabin which had been abandoned some time before. 
It had been made habitable no doubt by some repairs, but it 
had no windows and in it were few indeed of the commonest 
comforts of life. They were wearing old clothes which had 
served their day in Illinois and of food had small variety, al- 
though better supplied than the year before. The winter was 
severe and he lost all but two of his twenty cattle. More 



16 CORRESPONDEN'CE OF THE 

than all his privations, he regretted that he could be of so 
little use as a minister of the gospel and must spend so large 
a part of his time in providing the necessities of life. "If 
I have one object for which I desire to live more than all 
others," he wrote, "it is to see the cause for which Christ im- 
poverished Himself making the people of Oregon rich." 

In anticipation of the needs of California and of Puget 
Sound his first letter from Astoria had this : "Should the 
settlement of the Oregon question be what we anticipate, we 
shall greatly need a missionary stationed at Puget Sound 
before yoy can commission a suitable man and send him to 
the field. And should Upper California remain under the 
United States government, a missionary will be greatly need- 
ed at San Francisco Bay immediately upon the settlement 
of the Mexican War. . . This whole country and Upper 
California are emphatically missionary grounds, and our re- 
lation to the whole Pacific Coast and the half of the globe in 
our front demands prompt and faithful action. . . What- 
ever God has in store for our majestic River and our spacious 
and safe harbors on the Pacific, one thing is now reduced to a 
demonstration : We must become a part of the Great North 
American Republic. It remains for the Christian churches of 
that Republic to say whether our territory shall prove a 
blessing or a sore curse to the nation. Shall the needed help 
be denied us?" His plea for San Francisco and Puget Sound 
was often repeated. 

In the spring, because they could the better earn their liv- 
ing and, at the same time, be as useful as at Astoria, they 
moved to Clatsop Plains. ^ 

In connection with the Presbyterians, they at once organ- 
ized a Sunday school in the log school house where their 
eldest daughter^ taught during the week. 

This at first numbered twenty-five and soon grew to thirty. 
Following Sunday school each week, either Rev. Lewis 



1 See letter of Jan. 26. 1850. 

2 Miss Lucy J. G. Fisher (Latourette). 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 17 

Thompson, the Presbyterian minister, or Elder Fisher would 
preach, the two men acting alternately and their congrega- 
tions numbering about fifty. 

In June, mail from the East began to reach the Baptist 
missionary. It was the first since leaving St. Joseph, Mo., 
more than two years before. In August, two boxes from the 
Home Mission Society arrived. At the age of seventy-six, 
the only living member^ of the family remembers with what 
delight these, and a box from her grandparents, which arrived 
at the same time, were received. 

The goods from the Home Mission Society -had been 
ordered from Tualatin Plains, April 17, 1846, and were sent 
in response to the wish of Ezra Fisher that a large proportion 
of his salary each year should be spent on supplies purchased 
in New York at the lower New York prices and forwarded 
by ship to Oregon. This method of remittance was satisfac- 
tory to both and became their practice. The salary oi the 
two missionaries would appear to have been less than two 
hundred dollars each, as they received word in 1847 that it 
had been increased to that amount. They sometimes re- 
ceived donations from eastern churches and societies. These, 
.however, were usually books and periodicals for general dis- 
tribution. 

Removing four miles farther south on Clatsop Plains, near 
what is now Gearhart, Ezra Fisher kept up his appointments 
at the former place and began preaching on the alternate 
Sundays in his own home, a log cabin built by himself. In 
the fall, he made a four-weeks' tour of the Willamette Valley, 
taking with him a supply of Bibles, Testaments and tracts 
which had been received with the goods from New York. 

The third winter in Oregon was passed more pleasantly 
than the two which had preceded it. But life on Clatsop 
Plains in 1847 and 1848 was hardly modern. Around them, 
far more numerous than the white settlers, were the Clatsop 



3 Mrs. Ann E. Latourette. 



18 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Indians, and Chinook Jargon was in daily use. Ezra Fisher's 
cabin was Hghted by a primitive lamp without a chimney 
and burned oil obtained by the Indians from a whale which 
had been cast ashore. The lamp was a luxury of his own 
family, most of their neighbors using a saucer or small bowl 
of oil or lard in which a twisted rag served for a wick. His 
home was swept by a hazel broom which he himself had 
made. Indian baskets were common receptacles and, except 
for wild cranberries raked from numerous bogs, the family 
fruit supply was the berries gathered in the summer and 
dried. Mrs. Fisher had a few cherished dried currants, which 
on rare occasions she would add to a pudding or cake. The 
only apples or oranges the children had seen in Oregon were 
a few presented to them by a sea captain at Astoria. 

In the Spring of 1848, Ezra Fisher helped to build a log 
house to serve for school and church purposes, and on March 
18, 1848, organized the Clatsop Plains Baptist Church. At 
this time he was the only minister in the county, its popula- 
tion w^as gradually increasing and at his two stations were 
two Sunday schools with forty-two scholars, ten teachers 
and one hundred and twenty librar}^ books. 

In June, he made another trip to the Valley, this time to 
aid in the organization of the first Baptist association in Ore- 
gon, and to awaken an interest in starting a denominational 
school. At West Union, the Willamette Baptist Association 
was organized, June 23, 1848, Elder Fisher being elected 
moderator and David Lenox clerk. Thereafter, throughout 
his life, Ezra Fis'her was greatly interested in all the work 
of this Association, was its moderator many times, preached 
to it and served it in numberless ways. In connection with 
it was a Ministers' Conference which he helped to organize 
and of which he was repeatedly elected moderator. He later 
assisted in the organization of the Corvallis Association, and 
of the General Association, in both of which he took an 
active part. 

At the close of the West Union Meeting, he made an ex- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 



19 



tended tour of the Valley, preaching and looking over the 
field with the thought of a suitable location for a school con- 
stantly before him. He travelled on foot sixty-five miles 
above Oregon City, crossed the Willamette near Salem and 
visited the Yamhill church, returned through the Chehalem 
and Tualatin valleys and arrived at Oregon City on the 
twentieth of July. Leaving Oregon City on the twenty- 
fourth, he reached home the twenty-eighth. 

About this time came the Caiifornia gold excitement. 
In the spring of 1849, none of his church on Clatsop Plains 
was left but members of his own family. Amid the general 
confusion and excitement there was little hope of accomplish- 
ing much in Oregon, and he lacked the means to devote him- 
self to missionary effort in California. The loss of his sup- 
plies from New York for that year in the wreck of the bark 
Undine off Cape Horn and the absolute necessity of devising 
some method by which to provide for the needs of his family 
induced him to go to the mines. This he did, hoping, at the 
same time, that he might be of more service by going than 
by remaining at home. 

In San Francisco he met and preached for Rev. O. D 
Wheeler, whom the American Baptist Home Mission Society 
had sent to California in 1848. He was in the mines about 
eight weeks and took out about one thousand dollars' worth 
of gold, most of which, upon his return, went toward the 
purchase of a claim to furnish a site for a Baptist college. 
If any one should think him mercenary, let him read his let- 
ters of '49 and that of Jan. 20, 1853. 

Arriving home on August 23, he set out on the twenty- 
ninth for the Willamette Valley. At the call of several rep- 
resentative Baptists of the Valley, a meeting was held at 
Oregon City, Sept. 21, 1849, to consider the question of estab- 
lishing "a permanent school und'er the direction and fostering 
care of the Baptist churches in Oregon," and on the follow- 
ing day was organized the Oregon Baptist Education So- 



20 CORRESPOXDENCE OF THE 

ciety.^ The attendance being small, it was voted to adjourn 
and meet with the church in Yamhill County on Sept. 27. 

At the Yamhill gathering, every church except one, that 
of Molalla, was represented. A site for the institution was 
agreed upon, a Board of Trustees appointed, and to Rev. 
Richard Cheadle was assigned the task of raising two thou- 
sand dollars for the building and other expenses. Ezra Fisher 
was placed in charge of the institution and was requested to 
move to the place as soon as practicable and put a school in 
operation. The chosen location was on the "east bank of 
the Willamette about eight miles above the mouth of the 
Calapooia river." 

Upon his arrival with his family at Oregon City late in 
November, Ezra Fisher learned that the intended site was 
not vacant. While awaiting developments, he opened a school 
in the little meeting house^ which Hezekiah Johnson had 
built in Oregon City the year before, and where his niece, 
Miss Mary Johnson,^ had taught for a few months imme- 
diately after its completion. 

It was finally thought best to locate the college in Oregon 
City, the opportunity of purchasing a claim adjoining the 
townsite of Oregon City, the success of Ezra Fisher's school, 
and the desirability of Oregon City as a place of location, 
doubtless being the chief reasons which led to this decision. 
The claim was purchased for five thousand dollars by Heze- 
kiah Johnson, Joseph Jefifers and Ezra Fisher, the latter giv- 
ing twelve hundred and fifty dollars, most of it being what 
he had dug from the California gold mines. About fifty acres, 
half a mile back from the town, and so located as to command 
an unsurpassed view of the Willamette River and Cascade 
Mountains, when once it should be cleared of timl:)er, were 
donated for college purposes. To obtain title from the gov- 
ernment Ezra Fisher moved to the claim on November 30th, 



1 See letter of Feb. 8, 1850. 

2 It was the first Baptist church building west of the Rocky Mountains. 

3 Afterward Mrs. Henry V. Clymer. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 21 

1850. There he built a home and Hved until November, 1855. 
He made final proof for patent in January, the same year. 
Pursuant to agreement made at the time of purchase, he 
then deeded to James R. Robb and George H. Atkinson, suc- 
cessors respectively of Hezekiah Johnson and Joseph Jeffers, 
certain portions of the claim. For the Oregon City College 
he held in trust fifty-one acres which, in 1864, he deeded to 
the Trustees of Oregon City University.^ 

In November, 1851, the Home Mission Society appointed 
him Exploring Agent for Oregon, this action meeting with 
the hearty endorsement of the Willamette Association. In 
this capacity he labored until 1856. As Exploring Agent, he 
travelled on foot up and down the Willamette Valley many 
times, visiting also the Umpqua and Rogue River valleys. He 
visited and preached to the churches, assisted in the organiza- 
tion of others, held meetings, kept before the denomination 
higher standards of efficiency and was everywhere an influ- 
ence for good. His was in very truth "the voice of one cry- 
ing in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make 
His paths straight." 

Of his work during the time he made his home in Oregon 
City, he has given a fuller account than of any other period 
of his life. Let us leave to him the details of both it and of 
the Oregon City College. 

On Jan. 20, 1854, at her home near the site for the Oregon 
City College, yirs. Fisher died at the age of forty-eight years. 
Her illness was short and her family unprepared for so great 
a calamity. She left five children. The oldest- was married ; 
the four at home were aged respectively nineteen, fourteen, 
ten and six. She had lost two daughters : one at Ouincy, 111., 
in 1838; the other at Muscatine, la., in 1842. 

Mrs. Fisher had been a missionary's wife for twenty-two 
years. She had the same missionary spirit as her husband 

1 In Jan., 1856, the school obtained a charter under the name of the Oregon City 
University. The fifty-one acres were afterwards sold for the benefit of McMinnville 
College. 

2 Mrs. L. D. C. Latourette. 



22 CORRESPONDENXE OF THE 

and was constantly encouraging him in his work. With 
sweetness and fortitude she bore every privation. If her own 
heart was ever dismayed, her family seldom knew it and she 
took fresh courage from her beautiful faith in God and the 
blessedness of their work. Her children have often said that 
they never heard an unkind word from her lips. 

She knew how to make the most of everything. On scraps 
that many would have thrown away she could get up an at- 
tractive meal. If her home was sometimes a rough log cabin, 
it was a clean one and a most pleasant place to be. 

Her death was the beginning of a revival, in which about 
twenty-five were converted, most of them uniting with the 
Baptist church in Oregon City. Among the number were 
three of her own children and three from the family of Heze- 
kiah Johnson. 

Old pioneers of Oregon who knew Ezra Fisher well have 
said that he was a pleasant man to meet and converse with. 
In manner, he was quiet, kindly and dignified. In appear- 
ance, he was six feet in height and thin. His complexion 
was fair, his eyes blue, his hair light brown and abundant. 
His health, never the best, made him appear somewhat deli- 
cate, but he was muscular and had great endurance. In later 
years his beard was nearly gray, while his hair was but 
slightly so. He was careful of his appearance and, according 
to the almost universal custom of New England ministers, 
wore a stove-pipe hat. For the first eight years after com- 
ing to Oregon, his trips about the Valley were made on foot 
and he always carried the usual carpet bag of those days. 

When he preached he was earnest, convincing and scholar- 
ly. He could preach a doctrinal sermon, but seldom did. No 
pioneer minister of Oregon could be more depended upon to 
hold up the Christ than Elder Fisher. He disliked either 
levity or sensationalism in a minister. In delivery he was 
pleasing; he used simple language and was sometimes elo- 
quent. He generally used a skeleton. Those which have 
been preserved, show that his ideas were surprisingly mod- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 23 

ern. He often used the expression, "one more observation." 
If young people ever objected to this, they liked his pleasant 
smile after the sermon was over and he was very successful 
in his work with them. 

At the close of the Willamette Association of 1852, over 
which he had presided and to attend which he had walked 
from Oregon City to Parrish Gap, about twelve miles above 
Salem, he placed his hand on a boy's head and said : "I 
could walk this country all over for my Master, if I could 
only be successful in winning souls to Christ." He then 
appealed to the boy^ to become a Christian. It was one of 
many similar appeals. "He was always sowing good seed," 
said one who knew him well. 

Of what he was in his home life his daughter- has thus 
spoken : "My father was very kind and thoughtful of moth- 
er and the children, never omitting when starting on his 
frequent journeys to kiss us in his kindly way, and we were 
always glad to welcome his home-coming. He usually 
brought some start of fruit tree or flower to add to our 
home comfort." Wherever he lived, he soon had trees, small 
fruits and flovv'ers growing. He gave them excellent care 
and was skillful in pruning, grafting and budding. 

In 1853 he bought a white pony called Dolly. Thereafter 
in speaking of his trips Dolly was always included. "Dolly 
and I" found traveling bad today, or "Dolly and I" met with 
an accident, he would say. Dolly was the "carriage" of a 
news item which appeared in an eastern paper and read : 

"Rev. Ezra Fisher, of Oregon, while on his way to one of 
his appointments, was thrown from his carriage and one of 
his ribs was broken." 

On June 27, 1854, Ezra Fisher was married to Mrs. Amelia 
Millard. She was a woman of Christian character, whose 



1 Andrew T. Hunsaker, who was afterward General Missionary of the Baptist 
Convention of the North Pacific Coast, financial agent for the McMinnville College 
and who is a man so well known and esteemed throughout the state as to need no 
further mention. 

2 Mrs. Ann E. Latourette. 



24 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

coming into the home was a blessing to her husband and to 
his children. Such a woman as she was much needed there. 
By' her kindness and tactful counsel she won the hearts of 
her husband's children and grandchildren, and she lived to 
see some of his great-grandchildren and to be loved by them. 
The remembrance of her kindly face and loving deeds during 
frequent visits to their homes is one of their pleasant child- , 
hood memories. She survived her husband many years and 
was much beloved by all who knew her. She died at the 
home of her daughter, Mrs. James Elkins, in Albany, Ore- 
gon, at the age of ninety-seven years. To the end, she took 
an intelligent interest in everything, but especially in the 
work of her church and of the Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union. 

Ezra Fisher entered upon his last year as Exploring Agent, 
April 1, 1855, with the request that the Board of the Home 
Mission Society should be on the look-out for a suitable man 
to take his place, and at its close resigned. His work and 
the hard conditions attending it had told on his strength and 
he felt the necessity of a less arduous life. Wishing to settle 
near the center of the Valley within easier reach of the 
churches most needing ministerial aid, he accepted the pas- 
torate of the Santiam church, located at what is now Soda- 
ville, Oregon. The removal from Oregon City was made in 
December, 1855, ox teams being provided by members of the 
Santiam church. They were six days on the road, having 
stopped over Sunday at Parrish Gap. 

The Santiam church numbered at that time about thirty- 
six members. In a revival conducted by Ezra Fisher and 
Rev. William Sperry in 1853, there had been fifty additions 
to the church, but half the membership were dismissed to 
form what is now the Brownsville church. 

In 1856 the Willamette Association met with the Santiam 
church. The log school house being of insufficient size, the 
gathering was held in a new barn fitted up for the occasion. 
Heretofore the Willamette had been the only Baptist Asso- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 25 

ciation in the state. That year it was divided into three, the 
Santiam church, because of its location, going into the Cor- 
vallis Association. 

Ezra Fisher was a strong anti-slavery man. As time went 
on he found himself in a church and association whose mem- 
bers were largely from southern states. For the sake of har- 
mony, his policy at first was to say little. But as the slavery 
question grew larger and Oregon was threatened with admis- 
sion as a slave state, he felt that it was no time for silence. 
In public and privately he exerted his influence to the ut- 
most against slavery. When the adoption of a Constitution 
was before the people, his fight was a valiant one. A well- 
educated man from Kentucky said that he had met no one 
since leaving the East who reminded him so much of Henry 
Clay, and added, "He is as earnest and logical as Henry Clay 
himself." Few awaited the returns of Nov. 9, 1857, with 
more anxiety of mind than Ezra Fisher^, and none was made 
more glad by Oregon's decision. 

The pastorate of the Santiam church continued until 1858, 
when Ezra Fisher and the other anti-slavery members of the 
church withdrew and formed a church of their own near 
Washington Butte. They adopted the usual Baptist articles 
of faith, but declared also non-fellowship with those who in 
any way countenanced slavery. 

While with the Santiam church, Ezra Fisher had a farm of 
about twenty-five acres, from which most of his livelihood 
was gained. Upon moving to Washington Butte, he sold or 
traded it for another farm of about the same size. In the 
summer of 1861, he sold this and, putting most of the money 
into live stock, moved to The Dalles. 

Four miles from The Dalles, he bought a small place hav- 
ing for improvements little else than a poorly built log cabin 
and from which its former owner had not been able to raise 
enough to "feed the squirrels." Here, with his wife and 



1 As a good rule for the guidance of American citizens, he was fond of quoting 
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." j, 

m 



26 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

thirteen-year-old son, he spent the record-breaking winter of 
1861-1862. With plenty of wood, it was all they could do to 
keep from freezing. With the opening of spring, only a few 
of their stock, which had been let out for the winter, re- 
mained. He was almost penniless and obliged to receive 
help from a daughter to buy food supplies. 

He was sixty-two and Mrs. Fisher sixty, but they at once 
set themselves to the task of developing and making a living 
from their place. They set out strawberries and planted 
vegetables and fruit trees. After a few years, they were able 
to make a comfortable living. 

While he was doing this, he did not forget to preach. 
There being no Baptist church, he frequently preached for 
other denominations. The one Baptist family in The Dalles 
at the time they came soon moved away. Two leading men 
from the church at Washington Butte moved with their 
families to The Dalles, and others began to come, so that 
about 1863 Ezra Fisher began to preach on Sundays to the 
few Baptists of the place, their meetings being held in tlie 
court house. 

Later a church of sixteen members was organized. Ezra 
Fisher generally preached to them on Sundays, but being 
unable to give much time to the work, he would not permit 
himself to be considered as a pastor or to receive pay. At 
this time he was often working fifteen or sixteen hours a day. 
Rising about three or four o'clock to get his products oflf on 
an early boat down the river, he would then work the re- 
mainder of the day on his place. His sermons would be pre- 
pared on Sunday morning after breakfast and he would then 
travel, often on foot, four miles to town to preach. In 1870, 
a letter from The Dalles church to the Willamette Associa- 
tion reported : "We have been holding meetings every Sun- 
day for some time ; generally have preaching by our beloved 
Elder Ezra Fisher." He thus served the church until 1872. 

By his untiring labors, and those of his wife and son, their 
barren land was transformed into one of the pleasantest 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 27 

homes in the vicinity of The Dalles, and was a favorite visit- 
ing place of their many friends. They had built a good 
frame house, and the fruit from his orchard was known 
throughout the county. Indeed, he was one of the first to 
prove the superiority of The Dalles cherries. 

The strenuous work on his farm became harder for him 
each year. It paid him well, but he was continually going 
beyond his strength. He therefore sold his place and moved 
to California. 

The climate was favorable to the health of both, but, after 
a year spent near San Diego, the church at The Dalles, which 
was then able to pay a small salary, gave him a most urgent 
call. Feeling that it would be a joy to be once more of ser- 
vice in preaching the gospel, especially to his loved people 
of The Dalles, and wishing also to be near his children, he 
returned to Oregon. 

He arrived in time to attend the twenty-fifth anniversary 
of the Willamette Association. He gave a memorial address, 
preached to them on the Relation of the Doctrine of the 
Resurrection to the Scheme of Salvation, and was the only 
one present who had helped in the work of organization a 
quarter of a century before. 

At the time of his return in 1873, the church at The Dalles 
had twenty-three members. They were still without a build- 
ing, but had two lots which Ezra Fisher and one or two 
others had purchased about 1868. As actively as in his 
younger days, their pastor took up the labors before him. 
Besides working toward a church building, he preached two 
well-prepared sermons each Sunday, taught the Bible class 
in the Sunday school and did much pastoral visiting. He 
was also elected County School Superintendent. 

Upon returning to Oregon, he had earnestly prayed that 
God might once more bless his efforts in the conversion of 
souls. During the winter he held revival meetings in which 
he labored for six weeks. Sixteen of the young people of 
the town were added to the church. Among the number 



28 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

were his youngest son,^ Rev. C. M. Hill, present head of the 
Baptist Theological Seminary at Berkeley, Cal., and Rev. G. 
W. Hill, a Baptist missionary in China. 

The next summer he came to the Valley to visit and to at- 
tend the Baptist State Convention and the Willamette Asso- 
ciation, in both of which he took an active part. To the 
latter, which met at Forest Grove, he extended an invitation 
in behalf of his church to meet at The Dalles the following 
year, expecting that their $3,000 church would then be ready 
for dedication. The minutes of that year record: "Elder 
Fisher preached at the Baptist church to a full house. The 
venerable servant of God seemed to renew his youth, while 
he held forth Jesus as the Great High Priest of our profes- 
sion, and urged all to come to Him and live." 

On September 9, 1874, he conducted the exercises at the 
laying of the corner stone of the First Baptist church ot The 
Dalles, Rev. D. J. Pierce, of Portland, giving the address of 
the occasion. 

Elder Fisher preached his last sermon on October 18, 1874. 
While away on a forty-mile trip visiting the schools of 
Wasco county, he contracted a cold, which resulted in ty- 
phoid pneumonia. He was brought home to The Dalles, and 
there died November 1, 1874. He would have been seventy- 
five in January. His will provided that, at the death of Mrs. 
Fisher, one-third of whatever remained of his estate, which 
was small, should go to McMinnville College. 

From those who knew him in the East, among the number 
two of his classmates at Amherst, from men and women who 
had lived near him in the Middle West, from California ac- 
quaintances and from the pioneers of Oregon has come the 
testimony of what he was. It has been unanimous that his 
was a character of the highest type. 

The Society in whose employ he labored so indefatigably 
for nearly twenty-five years has placed the name of Ezra 



1 Francis VVayland Howard Fisher. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 29 

Fisher high on the roll of its missionary heroes. Many 
words of praise from men who have guided its afifairs might 
here be quoted. But from a most unexpected source came 
a simple testimony from one who crossed the plains with 
him, and, since no better test of character could well be im- 
agined than the trials and vexations which attended the jour- 
ney by ox teams to Oregon, it is here given. It came from 
Andrew Rodgers, who fell with the Whitmans at Waiilatpu. 
In a letter to Mrs. Whitman's sister, Miss Jane Prentiss, 
written from Tshimakain and dated April 22, 1846, he wrote : 

"There were three ministers in the company, one a Seceder 
minister (Dr. T. J. Kendall) from about Burlington. The 
other two were Baptist ministers, one from Iowa, the other 
from Rock Island, III., whose name was Fisher, and who was 
formerly of Ouincy, and is doubtless well known there. He 
manifested more of the true spirit of Christ while on the 
road than any other man with whom I was acquainted." 

None but God knows how the influence of Ezra Fisher 
lives on in the lives of many. He was an apostle of Jesus 
Christ sent to the frontiers of this country to have a part in 
shaping the destinies of the West. 




REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 31 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Springfield, Sept. 22, 1832. 
Rev. and Dear Sir: 

I take pen and paper to inform you relative to our pros- 
pects so far as they are connected with the Valley Mission.' 
The result of our protracted meeting was rather favourable, 
some few conversions and others serious. The brethren to 
whom we have disclosed our designs, at first were so affected 
that they knew not what to say, or how to act, but have 
since become somewhat reconciled ; yet they think they can- 
not relinquish us until the opening of the spring or next 
Sept. But how the Society may feel relative to our support 
when they learn our designs we cannot say. We are rather 
inclined to think that duty requires us to remain in this 
vicinity till spring; and if it should be your pleasure to as- 
sign us our field of labour in Illinois or Indiana, which we 
think we should prefer, if Providence opens the door, we 
should wish to remain till next Sept. Were we to consult 
our own desires, we should rejoice to be ready to give tiie 
parting hand to our dearest friends in Springfield this mo- 
ment. It is our daily prayer that the Lord open an effectual 
door by which we may publish the gospel to some destitute 
portion of the Great Valley as soon as it may be pleasing 
to Him. 

If not deceived, we both sincerely desire the work and 
would gladly make all necessary sacrifice. We think we 



1 In 1817 the General Convention of Baptists for Foreign Missions sent two 
missionaries into the Mississippi Valley, the first work of the organized Baptist de- 
nomination in that region. In 1830, the support of these missionaries was discon- 
tined by the Convention. The work was partly kept up by the Massachusetts Bap- 
tist Missionary Society. In 1832, the Baptist Home Mission Society was organized, 
and early in its existence sent missionaries into the Mississippi Valley. — Baptist 
Home Missions in North America, 1832-1882. New York, 1883, pp. 295, 296, 302. 

Rev. Jonathan Going, to whom the letter was addressed, was born in 1786. He 
was pastor in Worcester, Mass., 1815-1831, and was one of the prime movers in the 
organization of the Home Mission Society. He was its corresponding secretary from 
1832 to 1837.— Ibid, pp. 307, 313, 355. 



32 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

should prefer the southern section of the above-named states 
to the northern, if the claims are equally imperious. 

We feel confident that it is not the design of the Board 
to send labourers into the moral wastes of the West to suf- 
fer for the want of the necessaries of life, yet it would 
be pleasing on our part to learn whether we shall be obliged 
to depend, to any considerable extent, on any other resources 
for our support than the preaching of the Word. We desire 
to give ourselves to the preaching of the Word as far as 
practicable. 

We have increased the subscription for the Valley Mission 
to $35 and two strings of gold beads. . . . We hope to 
have one or more teachers, tolerably well qualified, to ac- 
company us from this church on their own responsibility. . . . 

We should gladly receive any instructions relative to the 
Valley. Please ansvc^er this as soon as practicable. 
Your obedient servant, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. S., 
Worcester, Mass. 
To the care of 

Rev. F. A. Willard, 
Worcester, Mass. 



Springfield, Vt., Oct. 31, 1832. 
Rev. and Dear Sir: 

I did not intend to trouble you with frequent communica- 
tions when I last wrote you. But providences are at present 
somewhat different from what I anticipated at that time. 
Since I am determined to leave the place in a few months, 
our people are inclined to direct their attention to another 
man for their pastor, and I had engaged to spend my time 
till I went to the Valley in collecting funds for the Home 
Miss. Soc. under the direction of the Vt. Bapt. State Con- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 33 

vention,^ and for the Vt. Branch of the Northern Bapt. Ed. 
Soc. 

But on my returning from the Convention last week I re- 
ceived a letter from Br. Lawrence of Indianapolis, inviting 
me to go immediately to that place ; stating in the same that 
he had conversed with you on the subject, and you assured 
him that the Home Missionary Society would furnish me 
with an outfit if necessary and sustain me in that place. Al- 
though I feel quite inadequate to sustain so important a 
place, after conversing with Brethren Graves and Hall, be- 
fore whom Br. Lawrence presented the claims of Indianapolis, 
and with our friends in this place, I have with great reluct- 
ance come to the conclusion that we would leave this place 
as soon as the twelfth of Nov. for Indianapolis by water. 
As the season is so far advanced that it will be impossible to 
go out this fall if we wait to receive instructions from your 
Board before we go, we thought we would venture to defray 
our expenses from the avails of our furniture and rely on 
the outfit to replace that after we arrived, and wait at In- 
dianapolis for instructions. You may think me too pre- 
sumptous. But I can assure you that I should not have 
ventured so much had it not been for the fact that you ex- 
pressed your wish when with us that I might go out the 
present fall, if I could leave this people, and for the assur- 
ance on the part of Br. Lawrence that you would approve of 
the measure. 

If this is not the place where you would wish me to la- 
bour, it would rejoice me if you would direct me to some less 
responsible station immediately on my arrival at Indianapolis. 

We hope to arrive at that place as soon as the tenth of 
Dec. and to find instructions there when we arrive. 
Yours in the Kingdom of Jesus, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Worcester, Mass. 



2 The Vermont Baptist State Convention was organized in 1824. — Baptist Home 
Missions in North America, 1832-1882, p. 296. 



34 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Indianapolis, Ind., Jan. 28, 1833. 
Rev. and Dear Sir : 

I now take my pen to give you an outline of God's provi- 
dential dealings with us since we left New England. We 
succeeded ... in adjusting our affairs at Springfield, 
A'ermont, so that we took our leave of the brethren and 
friends of that place on the 12th of Nov. last; and, finding 
the season for journeying so far advanced as to render the 
prospect of our reaching this place before the closing of canal 
navigation very problematical, we spent no time in visiting 
. . . . except five days with Mrs. Fisher's friends in N. Y., 
as we found ourselves compelled to seize the first oppor- 
tunity, whatever might be the accommodations, or relinquish 
our desired object. We proceeded by the way of 
Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton and arrived at this 
place on the 22nd of Dec. in comfortable health. The town 
is pleasantly situated on the east banks of White river; but 
presents to a stranger all the appearance of recent origin.-' 
The place is fast filling up with emigrants, so that every log 
cabin and almost every room in town contains a family. Rent 
is high. One can scarcely rent a house of any description, 
with a small garden attached to it, for less than fifty or sixty 
dollars per year . . . Notwithstanding the extreme cheap- 
ness of vegetables and meat, board is from $2.00 to $3.00 per 
week and horsekeeping $2.00. We have taken a chamber for 
a few weeks and, although but partially replenished with 
furniture, we cook our own meals, expecting soon to fi:id a 
small house which we can rent for the year. I shall delay 
purchasing a horse till spring, as they may always be hired 
for 30 cents per day. The principal religious societies are 
the Methodist, which has by far the largest membershiji, 
the Presbyterian, which has attached to it a very consider- 



3. The site for Indianapolis was selected in 1820 by a commission appointed 
by the state legislature. It was chosen because of its central location, but was in 
an unhealthy situation and was but slowly settled. In 1821 it was surveyed by 
Alexander Ralston, who had helped L' Enfant in his survey of Washington. In 1825 
the first lejrislature met there. — Lyman P. Powell, Historic Towns of the Western 
States (X. v., 1901), pp. 147-156. Tulia Henderson Levering, Historic Indiana (N. 
Y., 1909), pp. 149-156. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 35 

able number of the most influential men in town, and the 
Baptist. This church has been in existence five or six years 
and, in some of its earliest days, enjoyed peace and pros- 
perity.* But to these days have succeeded years of adversity. 
The present number of members is about fifty-five (and it 
would be somewhat difficult to describe the various differ- 
ences of faith which they embrace). They have no articles 
of faith but the New Testament. It is said that several of 
the most influential members are admirers of Alexander 
Campbell's doctrines, ^ some are called New Lights,^ and 
perhaps a majority of all the members are regular Baptists. 
Society is still in its elements and exhibits but little of fixed 
principles. Baptists from the several parts of the Union have 
met in this place and brought with them all their prejudices. 
At first our feelings revolted at the thought of uniting with 
a church of this description. But upon more mature reflec- 
tion we think the most effectual way of doing them good is 
to conform to the present state of things as far as practica- 
ble, hoping that the constant exhibitions of the humiliating 
doctrines of the Cross will melt the stubborn hearts and 
mould them into the likeness of their divine Master. As it 
respects my support, nothing has yet been done by the 
church. I expect the church will give me a formal invita- 
tion to preach for them one year at their next monthly meet- 
ing; and then I think something may be done by way of 



4 The first Protestant church in Indiana was Baptist, the Owen, or Silver 
Creek church. It was organized in November, 1798, not far from Louisville, Ky. 
The early growth of the Baptists was hampered by the fact that so many were anti- 
missionary ("hard-shell"). — Levering, Historic Indiana, p. 168. 

The Presbyterian church was the oldest in the city, having been organized in 
1823. — Ibid, p. 154. William T. Stott, Indiana Baptist History, p. 37. 

5 By the "Campbellites," to whom reference is made here and in other places 
through these early letters, are meant the Disciples of Christ. This movement was 
started by Thomas and Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone, all formerly 
Presbyterians, in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. At .first their 
followers were in fellowship with Baptist churches, with whose ideas of baptism and 
church government they were largely in agreement. Gradually, however, the Disci- 
ples were seen to be at variance with some of the Baptist teachings of the time, 
especially Calvinism, and they withdrew from the Baptists. This separation is 
shown by these letters to have been in progress at the time they were written, and 
something of the bitterness of the feelings aroused on both sides is seen. The 
"Campbellite" teachings were especially popular in the Middle Western states.— En- 
cyc. Brit., 11th ed., VIII :311. New Int'l. Encyc, VI :280. 

6 The New Lights was another name given to the followers of Alexander 
Campbell. — Stott, Indiana Bap. Hist., p. 54. 



36 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

securing a small part of my support. I find eight or ten 
brethren who have tolerably correct views respecting the 
support of the gospel ; but they have never reduced their 
principles to practice. These are mostly poor . . . Our 
congregations are very small and our prospects of increasing 
the number rapidly are not very flattering. Everything is 
yet to be done for the Baptists in this place ; yet perhaps 
this is the most important point to which we as a denomina- 
tion can direct our attention in the whole state. Churches 
are rising up about us in every direction, and I know of no 
church in the whole Association which have preaching more 
than one Sabbath each month ; and too much of that illy 
adapted to promote the peace and harmony of the church. I 
know of but two men in the whole Association, comprising 
1'5 or 16 churches, who devote any considerable portion of 
their time to the work of the ministry. As yet I have visited 
but three of the neighboring churches and find them better 
organized than the one in this place, but they are all, with 
one exception, feeble bodies. I design spending some time in 
the spring in visiting the churches on the Wabash, which is 
destined to become the most commercial part of the state. 
The Baptists in this town have never had a Sabbath school, 
but those who are in favour of the institution have sent their 
children to the ]\Iethodist and Presbyterian schools^ ; and 
the Bible class has taken the same direction. We design 
commencing a Bible class immediatel3\ as there is none in 
town at present, and as soon as the mud disappears in the 
spring we shall make an effort to get up a Sabbath school. 
We have established a weekly prayer meeting. I spend most 
of my time in visiting and preach from one to three evenings 

in the week 

Yours in the bonds of the gospel, 

EZRA FISHER. 



7 It will be recalled that at this time Haptists were divided on the matter of 
the Sunday School, many opposing it. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 37 

Indianapolis, Ind., March 29, 1833. 
Rev. and Dear Sir: 

By the blessing of the Great Head of the Church, our 
lives and health are continued to the time when it becomes 
our duty to give you an outline of my labours since our ar- 
rival at this place. I regret that I have so little to communi- 
cate in the present report that is cheering. And were it not 
the fact that you have become personally acquainted with 
many of the obstacles to the success of the missionary in this 
region, I should despair of the subjoined reports meeting a 
favourable reception with you. We arrived at this place, as 
you have already learned, on the 22d of Dec. last. Found 
the church (if indeed the association is worthy that name) 
in a lamentably chaotic state. Yet I remained for some time 
ignorant of the extent and inflexible obstinacy of the existing 
evils. I had, however, learned that the church experienced 
little else than one continued scene of discord for three whole 
years ; that some of the principal members were regarded as 
the disciples of Alexander Campbell, and that one of the 
same had proposed to sell the house and dissolve the church. 
I also learned that the church had no articles of faith. But 
I did sanguinely hope, by preaching Christ crucified and en- 
forcing practical godliness, that the tone of religious feeling 
would become so elevated that a reconciliation would be 
easily effected. These measures I adopted and for a while 
they seemed to produce the desired effect. The congrega- 
tion though small at most gradually increased ; the standard 
of piety became more elevated, and, by the unanimous con- 
sent of the church, the 15th of Feb. was spent in humiliation 
and prayer. The ensuing day was the regular meeting of 
the church, at which time Mrs. Fisher and myself, together 
with two others, united with the church by letter; and three 
disaffected members who had taken letters from the church 
returned. Peace and harmony seemed to be restored. The 
next day- the Lord's Supper was administered for the first 
time since last May. At the close of the sacramental feast, 
while the Spirit of Peace appeared to pervade the bosom of 



38 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

every communicant, the Br. who had proposed to sell the 
meeting-house arose and denounced the doctrine of the di- 
vinity of Christ and entreated his ministering brethren never 
more to publish the doctrine.^ I visited him the next day, 
presented to him the evidences of the divinity of Christ as 
taught in the Scriptures and administered a gentle reproof. 
At the next monthly meeting of the church he came forward 
and requested to be released from the duties of a member at 
present, professing to be dissatisfied with the mode of wor- 
ship, saying that he regarded it antichristian, and at the 
same time renewing a former request that the church would 
open the house for the use of the Campbellites on Friday 
and Saturday of the present week and the ensuing Sabbath. 
How many of the members are attached to his views, from 
various causes, is not known. But a rupture will be occa- 
sioned if the church attempt to discipline him. Our brethren 
say the blow is aimed at me, inasmuch as the prospects of 
the church have become somewhat brighter since my arrival. 
We have an aged minister in the church who has seldom, and 
perhaps never, preached for this church since his ordination, 
who is decidedly opposed to giving the charge of the church 
to any one minister. And in addition to this, it is reported 
that one of the deacons of the church has declared himself 
the Bishop of the church. With these and similar conditions, 
the brethren have delayed giving me any formal invitation 
to preach, but express a determination to bring the subject 
forward on the next monthly meeting. Of course, no meas- 
ures have yet been taken to secure any part of my support. 
Yet I have the pledge of Br. Bradley and others that some- 
thing shall be done soon. Nothing but a conviction of duty 
would induce me to stay in this place a single week. But I 
desire to learn and do the will of our divine Master. T have 
not yet determined what is my duty, but shall be better able 



8 The "Campbellites," or Disciples of Christ, were quite frequently denounced 
as being Unitarians, and some indeed may have been such through a misunder- 
standing of the teachings of their leaders. They are, however, Trinitarians, but 
object to many terms of theology, such as "trinity," "eternally begotten," "co- 
essential" and "consubstantial," and insist on the use in definition of no other 
terms than those actually found in the New Testament. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 39 

to judge when I have visited the churches on the Wabash, 
which I contemplate doing in May, unless you should regard 
such a tour unimportant. 

On the 17th inst. I baptized one . . . and we expect 
one or more brethren to unite by letter soon. I have a Bible 
class of about twelve members, and contemplate commencing 
a Sunday school soon if we stay in the place. The custom 
of the place is but one sermon on the Sabbath. AVhen prac- 
ticable I have preached once each Sabbath in the country. 
Since my arrival have preached thirty-three times, established 
and attended regularly a weekly prayer-meeting at the meet- 
ing-house, spent as much time as practicable in visiting from 
house to house, and visited four neighboring churches which 
are supplied with monthly preaching, and all but one of which 
are now oppressed with trials. We have become acquainted 
with a young brother by the name of James Woods, who 
was educated for a Presbyterian minister, but before com- 
pleting his theological studies embraced the Baptist senti- 
ments and united with the church in Spencer, the chief town 
of Owen County. During the past year he has had the 
charge of a Presbyterian Academy in this county (Marion). 
He expresses a desire of devoting his whole time to the work 
of the gospel ministry, and contemplates settling over the 
church at Spencer and dividing his labours among two or 
three churches in that vicinity. The place is 50 miles down 
the river from this and, from his account, is a very desirable 
place to be occupied by the Baptists. Br. Lawrence and my- 
self think him a valuable acquisition to our ranks and ap- 
prove of the measures he is pursuing, and feel safe in recom- 
mending him to the A. B. H. M. S. as a suitable person to be 
employed in the service of said Society in this state. He 
will remove his wife immediately to Spencer, at which place 
you can address him. Br. Lawrence has determined to 
change the character of his school, so as to adapt its instruc- 
tions principally to fitting young men for teachers and col- 
lege. He designs adopting in part the manual labor system. 
I expect to attend a meeting the fourth Saturday of next 



40 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

month, the object of which is to consult on measures relative 
to the formation of a State Convention. I have received from 
one brother the use of his horse to the amount of one dollar 
and the making a hoe from another, 75 cents. 

Please give me your advice relative to the course to be 
pursued with this church. 

Yours in the bonds of the gospel, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. S., 
New York, No. 4 Bowery. 



Indianapolis, June the 23, 1833. 
Rev. and Dear Br. 

After a long delay I proceed to report in brief my services 
for the quarter ending June the 22d. . . . When I first 
learned the great variety of religious sentiments embraced 
by the members of this church, I had but little hope of unit- 
ing all the members in the doctrines of the gospel as em- 
braced by the regular Baptists. And when I saw the determi- 
nation of a brother who had almost the entire confidence of 
the church to draw over all our members to A. Campbell's 
faith, my hopes of success were still diminished. He was 
untiring in his efforts and artful in his designs to rend the 
last existing bond of union. Although our immediate pros- 
pects of success seemed dark and all our efforts paralyzed, 
yet I regarded the location of the church too important, and 
many of her members too valuable to be abandoned in time 
of the enemies' approach without an effort. I was regarded 
the great obstacle that endangered the success of the Camp- 
bell party, and when the motion was made to invite me to 
the pastoral care of the church it met with spirited opposi- 
tion, and on the whole our friends thought it best to invite 
me in common with Brs. Lawrence and Hawkins to supply 
the church. . . . 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 41 

The body of the church, with the exception of the Arian 
party, which is not large, appear more firmly united than 
at any previous period since my arrival and express more 
confidence of prosperity than they have had for years. But 
I am not altogether confident we may not have other trials 
to endure before we are altogether disincumbered of the 
enemies of the cross of Christ. The brethren express a 
strong desire that my labours may be continued with them. 
Since April I have spent about one-third of my time in 
labouring with this church, preaching on Sabbaths and at- 
tending the regular prayer-meetings each Tuesday and visit- 
ing during the week as much as practicable. The remaining 
part of my time I spend in attending public meetings and 
visiting the churches and preaching as often as circumstances 
admit. I trust that more good may result to the denomina- 
tion by this course than if all was prosperity at home and 
my entire labours devoted to the interests of this church. 
During last quarter, aside from the labours devoted to this 
church, I rode about 500 miles, assisted in organizing the 
General Association of Baptists of Indiana, attended a public 
meeting at Noblesville, the seat of justice for Hamilton Co.. 
another at Greensburg, the seat for Decatur Co., visited 
Franklin, the seat for Johnson Co., Greencastle, for Putnam 
Co., Rockville, for Parke Co., Covington, for Fountain Co., 
and LaFayette, for Tippecanoe Co., and many other towns of 
less note. My principal object has been to become acquaint- 
ed with the state of the churches and at the same time to 
promote the objects embraced by the General Association of 
the state. The present prospects of a support, to any con- 
siderable amount, are not very flattering. Yet I think there 
will be a gradual increase (perhaps as great as in any other 
place in the state) if my services are continued. No eflforts 
have yet been made on the part of the church to raise any 
part of my support, on account of the deplorable condition 
in which we have been placed. I have received during t^ 
last quarter the amount of six dollars and thirty-four cents 
in such articles as would be of service in my family. I feel 



42 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

desirous of relieving the Board from all unnecessary expense, 
and if my support becomes burdensome before I can raise 
up churches which will freely sustain me, please inform me 
and I will secure the principal part by teaching in the week 
and preaching on the Sabbath. . . . It is the opinion of 
the brethren in the ministry who feel the deepest interest 
in the cause of Christ in Indiana that I ought to devote my 
whole time to the interests of religion if I can be sustained. 
I feel willing to spend my time in such a manner and at 
such a place as will tell the most in the interests of our 
divine Master. All of which I respectfully submit. 
Yours in the fellowship of the gospel, 

EZRA FISHER. 

... P. S. — Before mailing this, I wish to suggest a few 
among the many important places in this state which dem- 
mand the immediate attention of yovir Board. You know 
the importance of attending to the wants of the church at 
Salem, Washington Co.,^ from your personal acquaintance 
with the place. This church has just lost her pastor, Br. 
James McCoy, and wife by the cholera. '°. Rockville, Parke 
Co., is one of the most commanding points on the Wabash. 
. . . Several of the first men in the county express a de- 
sire that an educated Baptist minister settle with them. Num- 
bers of the churches in the vicinity are tired of Parker's 
doctrines and only want a little influence exerted among them 
to leave his ranks. I have been earnestly solicited to settle 
with them. And if I should leave this place I know of no 
other place which I should prefer for usefulness in the state. 
If you send a man to Rockville, he must be one who is not 
discouraged at trifles, for he would have to contend with thf^ 
ignorance and impudence of Parker's creatures. ^^ Covington, 



9 Salem had been one of the aspirants for the state capital. — Levering, Historic 
Indiana, p. 148. 

10 This was possibly the Asiatic cholera. It was introduced into America in 
1832 by emigrants from Europe. — Am. Cyc, IV:Sn. 

11 Parkerism was the name given to a branch of the Baptists, the followers 
of Rev. Daniel Parker, of the Wabash Valley. The anti-Sunday school, anti-Mission, 
ultra-predestinarian views of the body were a great obstacle to missionary work. — ■ 
Bap. Home Missions in North Am., 1832-1882, p. 330. Stott, Ind. Bap. Hist., pp. 
55 ff. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 43 

25 miles above, likewise needs a preacher exceedingly at the 
present time. Here is a small Baptist church. John Haw- 
kins, a wealthy and liberal man, is a member of this church. 
No minister of any order in this place. Greensburg, De- 
catur Co., very much needs a minister who can teach and 
preach part of the time in town and part of the time in the 
surrounding country. Bartholomew Co. is one of great im- 
portance to the Baptists, and demands immediate attention. 
Loganport will become the Rochester of the state in a few 
years. It ought to be attended to soon. . . . Hamilton 
County needs a Baptist minister located at Noblesville, 22 
miles up the river from this place. The church is small, but 
of the right sort, and the brethren would do all they are able 
for his support. A large school might be kept in operation 
through the year in this place. 



Yours, E. F. 



Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, 
No. 4 Bowery, 
New^ York. 



Indianapolis, Sept. 2, 1833. 
Rev. and Dear Br. : 

At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the General As- 
sociation of Baptists of Indiana, I was directed to address 
you by letter relative to the interests of the Redeemer's king- 
dom in this state. When our General Association was organ- 
ized we did not anticipate a general co-operation of the Bap- 
tists without a long and determined efifort on the part of its 
friends, and we feel confident that we shall not be disappoint- 
ed in this respect. Yet our plans of operation meet with as 
general approbation from the denomination as we anticipated. 
We expect the amount of funds which will be forwarded to 
our first annual meeting will be small, but our hands have 
been put to the plough with a determined resolution to per- 
severe, having the assurance that the enterprise pleases God. 



44 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

We feel that no ordinary obstacles will induce us to abandon 
the work. 

As yet we have employed no agent, but some few indi- 
viduals have engaged to do what they could in their imme- 
diate vicinities for the Ass. without incurring any expense 
of agencies till the time of our yearly meeting. . . . The 
members of the Board, as far as we have been able to obtain 
their opinion, are convinced that it will be important to the 
promotion of the cause of religion that an efficient agent be 
employed to travel through the state and labour under their 
directions. The questions which we wish to propose at the 
present are designed to secure your opinion on the following 
subjects: If the Trustees of the Bapt. Gen. Ass. of Ind. 
should think it advisable to appoint a general agent, would 
it probably please the Board of the American Bapt. Home 
Miss. Soc. to appoint a joint agent with said Ass. for this 
state? If so, would your Board probably concur in the ap- 
pointment of such an agent as the Trustees of the Gen. Ass. 
of la.^^ shall recommend? WMiat proportion of the salary of 
such an agent would your Board be willing to allow? We 
think an agent may be found who will faithfully discharge 
the duties of each board for the same salary which you give 
the present agent for this state. 

We deem it all important to the interests of the General 
Association that a man be employed who is acquainted with 
human nature as it exists with us. Please answer these in- 
quiries immediately, as we shall wish to present the answer 
before the Trustees at the annual meeting, which will take 
place on the first Friday of next month. 

Yours in the bonds of the gospel, 

EZRA FISHER. Cor. Sec. of the Gen. 
Ass. of Bapt. of Ind. 

N. B. — Our prospects in this town and vicinity are becom- 
ing more flattering. The church in this place will probably 
soon be freed from conflicting opinions and troublesome 
members. I assisted in the constitution of a small church in 



12 The abbreviation of la. stands for Indiana, not Iowa. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 45 

a town ten miles east of this place on the National road, 
about eight weeks ago, since which time I have visited them 
four times and baptized four members, and two more are 
to be received upon the administration of the ordinance of 
baptism, which will take place soon. Prospects encouraging. 

Yours, E. F. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, 
No. 4 Bowery, 
New York. 



Indianapolis, Jan. 15th, 1834. 
Dear Br. Going: 

The time has arrived in which it becomes my duty to make 
a condensed quarterly report of my labours as they stand 
connected with the cause of religion in this place and vicinity. 
This I do with mingled emotions of joy and grief. The 
emigrant who enters the forest with limited resources, begins 
to feel his bosom swell with joy as he sees the undergrowth 
removed, and the fatal blow struck at the root of the more 
stately trees, before the seed is sown and the blade begins 
to shoot forth, the happy omen of the harvest. But, as he 
finds his resources failing and turns his eye towards the huge 
timber which remains as an incumbrance on his soil and 
threatens to scatter blight and mildew among his grain be- 
fore the time of harvest, despondency settles upon his heart 
and sadness is depicted upon his countenance. You are well 
aware, sir, these and kindred feelings must pervade the bo- 
som of almost every true friend and servant of Christ, when 
commencing his labours in a new country where society is 
fluctuating, pecuniary resources limited and all the local pre- 
judices of the several parts of the globe are brought together 
and perpetually fanned to a flame. I rejoice to say that this 
state of things is generally disappearing in this vicinity. But 
the fruit of my labours has yet to be realized in a great 
measure, or I fear that my patrons will have occasion to 
take up the lamentation that they have laboured in vain and 



46 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

spent their substance for that which is not bread. Yet, on 
the whole, the prospects of the Baptists in this town are 
more encouraging than they have ever been at any former 
period since my arrival. During the quarter ending Dec. 
the 22d, 1833, I have preached twenty times, attended twen- 
ty-four preaching and conference meetings, mostly in this 
town, attended the General Association of Baptists of Ind. 
three days, the General Meeting of Western Baptists at 
Cincinnati six days, the Danville Association in this state, 
two meetings of the Indiana S. S. Unions held at this place, 
assisted in the organization of a Baptist Sunday school and 
Bible class at our house of worship on the first of Dec, 
have attended them weekly and instructed the latter, con- 
sisting of about 17 members. Our Sabbath school numbers 
more than sixty regular scholars and fifteen teachers. They 
both meet at the same place on the same hour, and a very 
laudable interest is manifested by members of the congrega- 
tion in the school. I have also attended one meeting of the 
Board of the General Association of Baptists of Indiana ; 
visited as much as the circumstances of my family would 
admit, and devoted more time to study than in any former 
quarter of the year, and this has been but for fractional 
parts of days. 

During the quarter we have had some two or three addi- 
tions to the church by letter, but none by baptism. I have 
$44 pledged for the last quarter by the church and citizens 
of this place ; they have also raised $22 in aid of the funds 
of the Gen. Ass. I am well aware that the part of my sup- 
port which I receive from the people in this place may ap- 
pear very trifling to your Board, but I think I am receiving 
more from this people than any other Baptist minister in the 
state receives directly from his people, and yet the state num- 
bers more than 11, OCX) Baptists. I leave you to judge wheth- 
er this is missionary ground. 

The prospects of support are more flattering the ensuing 
year than they were last spring. I do not neglect to remind 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 47 

the leading brethren that something must be done at home 
if they expect aid from abroad, and they seem well apprised 
of the fact. All of which is respectfully submitted. 

EZRA FISHER. 
P.S. — As I have paper I will append a few remarks and in- 
quiries. We have raised about $20 for an A. S. S. library, 
and procured one dozen copies of Winchel's Works, which 
are placed in the meeting house, hoping by this means to 
procure uniformity in books. The few brethren who are able 
and in favor of ministerial support contribute as liberally as 
the brethren in the New England churches. I perceive that 
my appointments make my 3^ear commence on the 8th of 
Nov., but I did not arrive at this place till the 22d of Dec, 
and I have made my reports from that date. Please inform 
me whether you intend to have me conform my reports to 
the time of the appointment or to the time of my arrival in 
this place. We have an old minister in the church who 
wishes to preach part of the time, and there are some in the 
church who wish things to be so and it is thought expedient 
for the present to let him preach at 11 half of the time, if he 
chooses, and for me to preach the other half at 11, attend the 
S. S. and Bible class each Sabbath at 2 P. M., and at 6 preach 
again. It is believed that the old brother will not wish to 
preach many weeks, if no opposition is manifested. His 
congregations are said to be very small. As yet I have 
preached in the country when he. preaches in town, so near 
that I can return before 2 P. M. We have sustained a 
weekly meeting on Tuesday evening, ever since last Feb- 
ruary, and the interest is better sustained now than at the 
commencement. We have also a regular meeting of the 
S. S. teachers each Saturday evening. 

Our expenses, after living as economically as we ever have 
in our lives, are greater than when in Vt. But we do not 
mean to complain, if our income will allow us to live so 
that we can secure the greatest amount of usefulness to the 
cause of our Blessed Redeemer in this state. We feel confi- 



48 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

dent that Providence directed us to this place. If some min- 
ister had not been directed here near the time in which we 
came, the CampbelHtes would have probably taken the meet- 
ing house and disbanded the church. The church is now in 
a tolerable state of harmony. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. S., 

Baptist Misison Room, Clinton Hall, 
New York. 



Indianapolis, Jan. 15, 1834. 
Dear Br. Going: 

At a meeting of the Board of the General Association of 
Bapt. of Ind., held Dec. 11th, 1833, I was authorized to in- 
form you that Br. Samuel Harding was appointed our Gen- 
eral Agent for nine months after the first day of April next, 
with the expectation that the Board of the A. B. H. M. Soc. 
would appoint him their agent for this state the same term 
of time. He is directed, on our part, to visit the most import- 
ant places in the state and all the churches whose mem.bers 
are known to be friendly to missionary operations, to form 
auxiliary societies where it is practicable, to impress the 
churches with a sense of the importance of at least in part 
sustaining those who minister to them in spiritual things, to 
attend associations and public meetings, to preach Christ 
crucified wherever he goes, to cultivate a friendly intercourse 
with the ministers of our denomination and to hold frequent 
consultations with the leading men of our denomination who 
are known to be friendly to benevolent operations. 

The Board have agreed to pay him twelve dollars and fifty 
cents per month on their part, with the expectation that your 
Board will pay him the same amount. We would not take it 
upon ourselves to dictate to your Board, yet we think the 
small amount of funds which he will raise should be col- 
lected in favor of the General Association of Indiana, as he 
would probably raise more for this object than he would for 
both, if they were both to be presented. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 49 

Br. Harding is a tried friend to the benevolent operations 
of 'the day, has acted as agent one year for the American 
Sunday Schol Union and is as highly approved in the 
churches and as generally known as any minister in the 
state. . . . 

Please address Br. Harding at Franklin, Johnson Co., Ind. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER, Cor. Sec. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 

Bapt. Mission Room, Clinton Hall, 
New York. 



Indianapolis, March 4th, 1834. 
Rev. and Dear Sir: 

I take the opportunity to inform you of the state of things 
in this region of country. The church in this place invited 
me at their last meeting to preach all the time the 
ensuing year, and, although our congregations are small and 
the present prospect for support not the most flattering, I 
think a greater amount of good will be realized to the de- 
nomination in the state by complying with this request than 
by any other course which I can pursue. 

Very little can be effected for this place without a regular 
ministr}^ every Sabbath and every day in the week. I am 
invited to attend a church five miles from this place once 
each month. This is destined to become an important coun- 
try church. The brethren in this place think that the best 
method to pursue is to exchange occasionally with a young 
br.i-' who has lately been ordained in that church. By this 
course we hope gradually to bring that church into the be- 
nevolent measures of the day. Our Sabbath school flourishes 
and, notw^ithstanding the mud and storms, we usually have 
74 scholars, and my Bible class interests my entire evening 



13 This was probably the Lick or Sick Creek church, and the "young brother," 
Rev. Thos. C. Townsend. See next letter, note 19. 



50 CORRESPONDEX'CE OF THE 

congregation, which varies from 40 to 60. I will write more 
particulars in my next quarterly report. ... 

Perhaps the discipline of this church can now/ be as 
promptly and harmoniously exercised as in any of the New 
England churches. 

Br. Woods has removed his family into Shelby Co., about 
six miles from Shelbyville, and the present arrangement is 
that he preach to the two churches which Br. Harding^'* has 
formerly attended, viz., Franklin, the seat of Johnson Co., 
the Blue River church in Johnson Co., and the remaining 
time in Connersville, the seat of Fayette Co., and vicinity. 
Perhaps Connersville is as important a point to be occupied 
at this time as any in the state, and Franklin but a little less 
so. The brethren in both these places are embracing correct 
views of the support of the gospel and are only wanting the 
man and the means to sustain in part the ministry. If Br. 
W. should be successful at Connersville, I think that will be 
the place for him to locate. He will probably realize $100 or 
more from the three churches the present year, and, with 
$100 more from the A. B. H. M. S., I think he will be com- 
fortably sustained, as he will have no rents of account to 
pay and his family are in the country. Br. Woods will re- 
ceive communications from you at Shelbyville Postofifice 
with the most convenience. He has some anxiety to know 
whether he shall be continued by your Board. We have a 
young br., recently from the vicinity of Brockport, N. Y., 
by the name of Eliphelet Williams, ^^ who is preaching with 
acceptance to the churches in the vicinity of Shelbyville, and. 
from the short acquaintance which we have had with him, 
we think him well adapted to the place where Providence 
has placed him, for the opportunities he has enjoyed. He 



14 Rev. Samuel Harding was horn in Kentucky, Dec. 24. 1787, and moved 
to Indiana in 1825, settling on lands seven miles southeast of Franklin on Blue 
River. He helped to organize the Blue River and Franklin churches. He died in 
1836. — W. N. Wyeth, in First Half Century of Franklin College, Franklin, Ind., 
Jubilee Exercises, 1884, Cincinnati, 1884, p. 11. 

15 Eliphelet Williams helped in the organization of Franklin College. — Levering, 
Historic Indiana, p. 426. 

He was born in Ashford, Mass., in 1804, and came to Indiana in 1833. — Wyeth, 
Half Century of Franklin College, p. 21. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 51 

appears to be much such a man and preacher as Br. J. M. 
Graves of Vt. was eight years ago. . . . It is now a favor- 
able time for Baptist influence to be exerted in the town. 
The people in Shelbyville and the churches to which he 
would preach will probably give $100 the first year. Br. 
Williams wishes to stay till Oct., then return to N. Y., spend 
the winter in study, and in the spring come out and settle. 
If your funds will justify you in giving him an appointment 
of one year at $100, I think the money would be well ap- 
propriated. The funds of our General Association are ex- 
hausted, and we have already made appointments to almost 
twice the amount collected the last year. But for this we 
would pay him $50 for six months. If your funds will not 
admit of his appointment, please write him immediately at 
Shelbyville. 

Br. Lewis Morgan, ^^ who was with me at Cincinnati, has 
been discontinued from his agency in the service of the A. 
S. S. Union, we all suppose through the influence of the 
Gen. Agent of Indiana. The reason assigned is a want of 
funds. Br. Morgan wishes to devote himself to the cause of 
Christ, but says, unless he has some assistance, he must do 
it at the sacrifice of a part of his farm, which he is deter- 
mined to make, if assistances comes from no other quarter, 
There are several destitute churches in his vicinity, unable 
to contribute much, which seem naturally to look to him 
for preaching or they must remain destitute. Would it be 
practical for your Board to unloose his hands in part? 
Please write him at Shelbyville and inform him whether any 
help may be expected for him, or write Br. Harding at 
Franklin respecting these cases severally, as he will enter 
upon his labours the first of next month. Br. Nathaniel 
Richmond.'^ who preaches at Noblesville, the seat of Ham- 
ilton Co., at Pendleton, the falls of Fall Creek, an important 



16 Rev. Lewis Morgan was born in Tennessee in 1788, and in 1816 moved to 
Shelby County, Indiana. He died in Iowa in 1852. — Wyeth, Half Cent, of Franklin 
College, p. 16. 

17 Rev. Nathaniel Richmond came to Indiana from Onondaga County, N. Y., in 
1817. His ministerial labors were largely in Fayette and Wavne Counties. — Wyeth, 
Half Cent, of Franklin College, p. 20. 



52 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

] 

place, and at Cumberland, ten miles east of this on the Na- 
tional road, had received no commission four weeks ago. 
These are among the best preachers we have in the state. 
If we except Brs. Harding, Rees^^ and Fairman, and one or 
two in the south part of the state, they are the best. I feel 
it important that the most promising talents in the state be 
encouraged, if practicable, till the churches begin to feel the 
importance of sustaining their own ministry and conveying 
the blessings they now enjoy to the more destitute. A few 
years with a faithful ministry will, under God, accomplish 
this object. 

Our requests may seem to be beyond your means but, 
unless something more is done for Indiana, the present influ- 
ence of our denomination must yield to other denominations 
which are doing what they can for the salvation of the West. 

My family are in tolerable health. Br. Holman's health is 
partially restored. We expect several school teachers from 
Mass. to come to this state this spring. One is much needed 
in this place at present. I have been repeatedly solicited to 
take the S. S. Agency, but I do not think it duty to leave 
this place. 

Yours affectionately, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N.B. — A railroad will probably be commenced the present 
season from Lawrenceburg to this place, which will event- 
ually be continued to the Wabash, probably Lafayette. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, 

Baptist Mission Room, Clinton Hall, 
New York. 



Indianapolis, April 9th, 1834. 
Dear Brother : 

Another quarter having passed away, never to be recalled, 



18 Rev. William Rees was born in Pennsylvania in 1797, and early moved to 
Ohio, where in 1820 he was ordained. In 1832 or 1833 he moved to Delphi, Ind., 
where he founded the Baptist church. He died in 1849. — William T. Stott, Indiana 
Baptist History, 1798-1908, p. 17.";. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. S3 

it becomes my duty to report the amount of my labours and 
their apparent success for the three months terminating 
March the 22d. It is with regret that in the statement of 
facts my reports present so Httle that is cheering to those 
who are bestowing their prayers and alms to sustain the 
cause of Christ in this place and vicinity. Yet to one who 
has been an eye-witness to the various scenes through which 
the church has passed in this place since our arrival, as well 
as the interest which has been excited in the denomination 
through the state, the conviction is strong that our labours 
have not been in vain in the Lord. All the changes which 
have taken place in this church since last summer have evi- 
dently been preparing the way for a permanent Baptist influ- 
ence to be exerted in this place. But hitherto it has all been 
uphill work. Indeed, I believe it is one of the decrees of the 
Almighty that His people shall not reap a plentiful harvest 
from the fields on which they have bestowed no labour. I 
sometimes feel to bless God that it is so. Our Sunday school 
and Bible class, which together consist of about thirty-five 
scholars, were both put into successful operation on the 
eighth of Dec. last, and it was regarded altogether proble- 
matical, both by friends and foes, whether the school could 
be sustained. But it was made the subject of daily prayer, 
and to our great satisfaction, in less than six weeks, our 
school numbered more than sixty scholars, independent of 
the Bible class. We then found ourselves obliged to take al- 
most every member of my Bible class for teachers . . . 
and to appoint another hour for the Bible class, which was 
immediately after the evening preaching. By adopting this 
plan we furnished the school with efficient teachers and se- 
cured the attendance of the night congregation at the Bible 
class, which continues to be sustained with more interest 
than we had anticipated. The S. S. continued to increase 
gradually till the close of the quarter. ... It numbered 
89 scholars, and last Sabbath there were present 100 and 
more than 20 teachers. One of the great sources of the suc- 
cess of this school has been the weekly meetings of the 



54 CORRESPOXDExVCE OF THE 

teachers on Saturday evening, when plans are devised for the 
promotion of the interest of the school. These plans are put 
into practical operation during the ensuing week. These 
meetings I attend and contribute perhaps my part of labours 
through the week to this object. The state of the church is 
gradually improving, so much so that at the regular meeting 
in February the brethren were pretty unanimous in inviting 
me to become their stated preacher, which was more than I 
had anticipated could be done. . . . The Campbellite and 
Arian influence is so reduced that we had nothing to fear 
from that source, and a wholesome discipline is easily exer- 
cised. We have religious exercises at each church meeting, 
at which time I address those present, and all the business is 
conducted with Christian unanimity. During the last quar- 
ter I preached regularly twice each Sabbath, attended the 
S. school at 2 P. M., and at 7 in the evening attended the 
Bible class. I often deeply regret that we see no more fruit 
of our labours by the ingathering of spiritual members to 
the church, but while we thus lament we are not left without 
some external tokens of God's favor. Our congregation has 
undergone an entire change within eight months, still we 
have a gradual increase at our Sabbath meetings and, within 
a few weeks, I have found more than usual seriousness in 
the minds of a few individuals. Comparatively little can be 
done by way of preaching in town during the week. We, 
however, sustain a regular weekly meeting each Tuesday 
evening, which commenced about one year ago with five or 
six attendants, and has increased to from 15 to 40. Of late 
I have commenced giving a short discourse on these occa- 
sions. On Saturday evening, as you have already learned, 
I attend the teachers' meeting and usually address it. Al- 
though I preach little during the week, almost every mo- 
ment of my time is employed in town. I spend from one 
to two days each week in preparing for the several exercises 
of the Sabbath, and as much of my time as practicable in 
visiting, after attending to the concerns of my family and 
maintaining my correspondence. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 55 

In summing up my labours for the last quarter, I find that 
I have preached 23 times, assisted in the ordination of Br. 
Thomas C. Townsend'^ at Sick Creek church ... at- 
tended three church meetings at Indianapolis and one at 
Sick Creek, administered the ordinance of the Supper once, 
attended 13 prayer meetings, 12 teachers' meetings, the Sab. 
school 13 times, the Bible class 9 times, heard preaching at 
this place five times, attended two meetings of the County 
Temperance Society,-'' assisted in the organization of a State 
Peace Society, and spent as much time in visiting for the 
purpose of promoting the interests of religion as was prac- 
ticable, and, if not deceived, have enjoyed more of the Di- 
vine Presence than in the same term of time at any former 
period since I came to the Valley. If I know myself, I am 
willing to make sacrifices and endure hardships, if, by so 
doing, I can be made instrumental in increasing the light of 
the knowledge of God among the inhabitants of the wide- 
spread and luxuriant West. 

All of which is respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 



N.B. — By the strong solicitation of several members of 
the church and the advice of others, I have consented to 
take charge of a class of seven young ladies one quarter, 
which occupies from one to two hours each day for five days 
in the week. It is not my design to continue the class longer 
than the middle of June. I needed the avails thus made 
to enable me to sustain myself and family, and, on mature 
deliberation, I thought the influence which it might exert on 
the cause would be good, as they are young ladies of the 



19 Rev. Thomas C. Townsend was born in Virginia in 1799, served as pastor 
in several places in Indiana from 1834 on, and moved to Iowa about 1856. — William 
T. Stott, Indiana Baptist History, 1798-1908, p. 145. 

Stott calls the church Lick Creek, not Sick Creek, and says it was four miles 
south of Indianapolis. — Ibid. 

20 The temperance movement, to which mention is so often made in these let- 
ters, began early in the nineteenth century. In the decade between 1820 and 1830 
it had a remarkable growth, over a thousand societies existing in 1829. The first 
national temperance convention met at Philadelphia in 1833, with delegates from 
twenty-two states. — James Schouler, Hist, of the U. S., 111:524. Harpers Ency- 
clopaedia of U. S. Hist., IX:39. 



56 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

first respectability in town. The cause of truth is evidently 
advancing in this state. A protracted meeting has recently 
been held with the church to which Br. Harding (the Gen. 
Agt.) preaches, during which more than twenty experienced 
a hope in Christ. Prospects are flattering in the region 
where Brother Richmond preaches ; four have recently been 
baptized and more are expected to go forward in this ordi- 
nance at the next meeting. We receive pleasing intelligence 
from other sections of the state. We are confident that the 
spirit of religious enterprise is gradually rising among the 
Baptists. The high sound of Campbellism seems to be grad- 
ually dying away like the slow murmurs of the evening bell. 

As yet no efforts have been made to raise a part of my 
support for the present year ; but I am assured that some- 
thing will be done in a few weeks. Mr. Bradley, who is al- 
ways ready to seize the most favourable opportunity, pro- 
poses to wait till the merchants get on their summer goods 
and business becomes a little more lively, which will be in 
three or four weeks. The number of friends are increasing, 
but the extreme pressure of times for which everyone is 
looking, renders it doubtful whether we get much more 
raised this year than we did the last, but I will inform you 
more particularly on that subject soon. I shall give Nicholas 
McCarty an order on you for thirty-one dollars due me for 
the last quarter's services of last year ; and seventy-five dol- 
lars due me for the last quarter's services, making in all $106. 

I expect to attend the ordination of Br. James V. A. 
Woods^i on the 4th Friday and Saturday of the present 
month, six miles this side of Shelbyville. 

Yours &c., E. FISHER. 

P.S. — I expect to hear a young brother by the name of 
Blood recite during the summer. He is about 18 and prom- 
ises to be useful in the ministry. He is a descendant of El- 



21 J. V. A. Woods helped to organize Franklin College. — Levering, Historic 
Indiana, p. 426. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 57 

der Blood. . . . 160 volumes in the S. S. Library. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, 

Bapt. Mission Rooms, Clinton Hall, 
New York City. 



Indianapolis, July the 8th, 1834. 
Dear Br. Going: 

I have delayed making out my quarterly report for more 
than two weeks, that I might be able to inform you whether 
there were any prospects of my securing any '"':)nsiderable 
part of my support for the current year from the people in 
this place. The brethren have been waiting to avail them- 
selves of the most favorable opportunity to start a subscrip- 
tion paper, which was not issued till about the first of this 
month. The success has somewhat exceeded my expecta- 
tions. I have not yet ascertained the precise amount sub- 
scribed, but it is said to exceed $120, and I think enough 
more will be subscribed to make the amount $150. It is 
truly gratifying to see the change which has been effected 
. . . . during the last twelve months in this respect. Sub- 
scriptions have been as liberal as could have been expected 
from the same number of men and the same amount of 
property in any of the New England congregations. I have 
not altogether neglected to instruct the people, both in public 
and private on suitable occasions, in the duties of the church 
relative to the support of the gospel. With a few exceptions, 
the scriptural rule has been kindly received. I doubt not but 
there is more pledged the present year than would have been, 
if I had not commenced building. Rents becoming high and 
its being uncertain whether we could occupy a house three 
months before it was sold, we determined to build a small 
house, which will involve us about $200 in debt beyond our 
present means. I get my lumber on credit from the former 
treasurer of the state and present president of the bank. He 
engages to await till I can pay it at six per cent interest 
after the first year, and says, if he is prosperous in business. 



58 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

he would rather give me the whole lumber than have me 
leave the place. 

The church in this place is enjoying more than an ordi- 
nary degree of union and brotherly love ; but we have to 
lament that as yet we have not experienced those effusions 
of the Holy Spirit which are beginning to be enjoyed in 
other parts of our land, and even in a few places in this 
state. Our congregations are on the whole increasing, but so 
slowly as to be imperceptible, except as we compare them 
with what they were two or three months past. The as- 
sembly manifest more than ordinary attention to the Word 
preached . . . and I have found several instances of more 
than usual seriousness during the past quarter, but have no 
evidences of any hopeful conversions. 

Our Sabbath school remains in a flourishing condition and 
has about 130 scholars, of whom we have about 100 each 
Sabbath. My Bible class continues prosperous. 

During the past quarter, I have preached 43 times, attend- 
ed 13 teachers' meetings . . . attended S. school 13 times, 
attended the Bible class 12 times, attended four church 
meetings, two protracted meetings, two county temperance 
meetings, in which I participated, assisted in the constitu- 
tion of one church four miles from this place, with which a 
number of our members joined, assisted in the ordination of 
Br. James V. A. Wood, one of your missionaries, assisted in 
the organization of a ministerial conference for the central 
part of the state of Ind., attended the semi-annual meeting 
of the Board of the Gen. Ass. of Bapt. of Ind., attended a 
meeting of the Baptists on the subject of Education,-- from 
which I am sanguine that a Baptist literary institution will 
be the result ; attended one funeral ; attended a class of six 



22 This refers to the meeting of June 5, 1834, in Indianapolis, which was the 
first step toward the organization of the future Franklin College. Another meeting 
was held in October, and in 1835 the institution called "The Indiana Baptist Manual 
Labor Institute" was located at Franklin. In 1836 a building was erected and in 
1837 the first teacher was employed. In 1844 the institution was re-chartered as 
Franklin College. G. C. Chandler, whose name appears frequently in the letters 
from Oregon, was president, 1844-51. — W. C. Thompson, First Half Century of 
Franklin College, pp. 29-37. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 59 

females five times a week and visited as much as practicable 
for the purpose of promoting the interests of religion and 
education. If I am not much deceived, never did I feel so 
strong a desire to see the cause of our blessed Redeemer ad- 
vance in the Western Valley, and especially in the state. Al- 
though we have many trials to which we were strangers 
when in New England, yet the joy we feel in seeing an in- 
terest beginning to be awakened to the great subject of 
Christian enterprise among the Baptists in this state more 
than compensates us for all our trials.^^. There is nothing 
wanting but a few more efificient men in the field, judiciously 
located, to see the Baptist cause rise in this state as fast as 
it ever did in Mass. or New York. Prejudices are not so 
deeply rooted as I anticipated before coming to the state, 
and two years of devoted service in the cause of Christ and 
His church will live down more than half the prejudices 
which the enemy can array against an eastern minister. God 
is evidently preparing the hearts of the people for just such 
a ministry as you would wish to send us. Br. Harding is 
labouring faithfully and with a good degree of success in the 
cause of the Gen. Ass. In addition to the sum raised in this 
place for my support the present year, I shall be disappoint- 
ed if we do not raise at least $37.50 for the Gen. Ass., and, 
should an institution of learning be located near this place, 
something liberal will be contributed to that object. I feel 
as though my family need the avails of my class in ad- 
dition to my stated income to render our situation comfort- 
able. . . . 

All of which is respectfully submitted, 

E. FISHER. 
. . . . N.B. — Br. Woods will probably go to Logans 



23 Here, as elsewhere through these letters, there is evidence in the growth of 
the modern Baptist denomination, of the effort required to create in the extremely 
individualistic Baptist churches, averse to Sunday schools, to a supported ministry, 
and to extensive rnissionary and educational work, an interest in missions, home and 
foreign, in education, in a supported ministry, and in an organized, aggressive de- 
nominational life. It is to be expected that the extremely individualistic, democratic, 
decentralized form of church should be developed and maintained longest on the 
frontier, and that with the passing of frontier conditions, the more highly organized 
church with its specialized ministry should come to prevail. The impetus, naturally, 
came from the Atlantic states. 



60 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Port, and I think perhaps it will be best. Men will some- 
times work to the best advantage when they can feel at home 
themselves. He has talents enough to sustain the place, if 
he exercises enough of prudence. Connersville is now suf- 
fering for the want of a minister. Lafayette needs an able, 
efficient young man. Br. Fairman would do what he could 
to sustain him. If you know of any suitable men for these 
places, who can be principally sustained by the Home Mis- 
sionary Soc. for two or three years, I should be in favor of 
having our Gen. Agent visit those places the present summer 
and learn what can be done. 

E. F. 

The south part of the state is suffering for the want of a 
suitable man at Madison, and another at New Albany and 
Salem. Vincennes, Terra Haute and Rockville ought not to 
be overlooked. 

I baptized one in this place last Sabbath and expect to bap- 
tize several more the first week in August, 10 miles up Fall 
Creek, where we shall probably have occasion to form a 
church soon. The Lord is at work there for the Baptists. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. S., 

Bapt. Mission Rooms, Clinton Hall, 
New York City. 



Indianapolis, Sept. the 29th, 1834. 
Beloved Br. : 

I am again called upon, agreeable to the terms of my ap- 
pointment, to make my quarterly report for the quarter end- 
ing the 22d of the present month, which is less interesting 
than I could have wished. Although my family and myself 
have suffered more from the climate the present season than 
at any former period since we arrived in the place, yet we 
feel to bless God that I have been enabled to attend all my 
appointments except two or three. During the month of 
July, I was subject to a disease resembling the flux, so as to 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 61 

be confined principally to town. Since that time, Mrs. Fish- 
er and our little daughter were severely afflicted, about ten 
days each, with sore eyes. With these exceptions our health 
and spirits have been good. 

My occasional preaching has been directed principally on 
Fall Creek and in the bounds of Pleasant Run church. Early 
in the summer the Pleasant Run church received a number 
by baptism, amounting to 12, mostly the fruits of a pro- 
tracted meeting held in May. Up Fall Creek, 10 miles from 
town, the prospects were flattering during the months of 
June and July and I thought a work of grace had already 
commenced. Several appeared unusually serious for a few 
weeks, but one unfavourable occurrence seemed to cast a 
gloom over the whole prospect. The wife of a man who 
was said to have another wife living, offered herself as a 
candidate for baptism. The church thought it not advisable 
to receive her ; the family connexions being somewhat num- 
erous, and several of them evidently serious, the circum- 
stance seemed to chill the feelings of the whole settlement. 
I trust, however, that the seed sown will eventually spring 
up and bring forth fruit to the glory of God. One worthy 
sister came forward and submitted to the ordinance of bap- 
tism and united with the Pleasant Run church. 

The cause of Christ in this place wears much the same 
aspect as when I made my last quarterly report. On the 6th 
of July I baptized one sister of an amiable Christian temper. 
Sabbath school remains as flourishing as could be expected 
during the sickly season. In consequence of the multiplicity 
of services on the Sabbath, I have changed the character of 
my Bible class, and am now spending an hour each Sabbath 
in interpreting the historical part of the Old Testament, after 
which I give an opportunity for any one to ask any ques- 
tions relative to the portion of Scripture under review. The 
plan succeeds well thus far. Our congregations have re- 
mained as good in the sickly season as they were in the 
spring, but no unusual attention to the subject of religion. 



62 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

The church and citizens will probably pay half my salary 
the present year. My attention has necessarily been en- 
grossed more than I anticipated in my building, and much 
more than it would, if my means would have justified me in 
letting the job out to one man; but I feel to bless God that 
this care is now principally off my hands, at least till the 
pay day comes, and that may as well come in a house as 
in rents for four years. I think you would judge in the same 
way were you here. The cause of missions in our denomina- 
tion is evidently gaining ground in this state, although it 
is as evident that opposition is becoming more bold. Doubt- 
less the majority of almost every association in the state is 
either opposed or indifferent to the benevolent institutions. 
The moderator of our association had the hardihood to warn 
the brethren against all the benevolent institutions, but we 
have little reason to fear his influence long. We are told 
the triumphing" of the wicked is short. We feel confident 
that the mission cause will eventually take root in every 
church, if there is efficacy in prayer and efficiency in action, 
for it is the praying and doing part of the church who are 
awake to this subject. If war must be declared on this sub- 
ject, we are prepared to act on the defensive. The subject 
of education is one which has rested with great weight on 
my mind, and I trust something efficient will be decided 
upon relative to an institution adapted to our immediate 
wants at the meeting of our General Association the present 
week. Were it not for the great pressure of the times in 
relation to money, we should have probably issued a sub- 
scription list the present fall. We shall probably feel as 
though we could not delay longer than till spring. A few 
must make the commencement, or the time for the Baptists 
in this state will be over in a few years. If we had anything 
like an efficient ministry in this state at the present time, and 
unity of action in the churches, the ground might be ours to 
a great extent. The old and new school question is now 
agitating the Presbyterian Church throughout the state, and 
the question is not adapted to produce union in their 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 63 

churches.2^ My services are so much needed in this place 
that it is impracticable for me to attend many public meet- 
ings abroad. If we could have one or two revival preachers 
to travel and attend protracted meetings, for one or two 
years, whenever they were invited, and to spend the rest 
of their time in preaching at some important place or places 
in the state, men who would not interfere with the broils in 
churches unless solicited, I think much good might be ef- 
fected. Such meetings are now becoming popular in the 
churches. 

During the past quarter I have preached 43 sermons, at- 
tended ' one ordination, one association, 34 other meetings, 
and visited as much of my time as practicable. . . . 

Yours in gospel bonds, 

EZRA FISHER. 
N.B. — Br. Rice McCoy has departed this life. The event 
occurred three or four weeks since. It may be said with em- 
phasis that another good man has fallen. 

P. S. — Br. Lawrence has joined the Campbellite Church in 
Charlestown. My. fears are now realized. 

Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, 
Clinton Hall, 
New York City. 



Indianapolis, Nov. 25, 1834. 
Dear Br.: 

I received a letter from the Recording Sec. a few days 
since, informing me of my reappointment for twelve months 
at this place with a salary of $100, requesting me to answer 
it soon. He likewise informed me that if I needed more to 
sustain me it would be allowed on my representation^s. It is 



24 The trouble between the Old School, or Conservative, and the New School, 
or Liberal, Presbyterians came to a head in 1837, although the trouble had been 
brewing for some years. The two parties virtually formed separate denominations 
until their reunion in 1871. — McCIintock and Strong, Cyc. of Biblical, Theological 
and Ecclesiastical Literature, VIH, 534. 



64 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

altogether uncertain whether as much will be realized the 
ensuing year as the present, from the consideration that 
several contributed more liberally than they would, if I had 
not been engaged in building a house. But I hope that as 
much, and perhaps more, will be contributed from the people 
here. ]\Iy congregation increases slowly and the Baptist 
cause is altogether an uphill concern, but I do not despair 
of its ultimate success. This place needs a more leading 
mind and a more popular speaker than myself. The ground 
is now cleared so far as the church is concerned. I will ac- 
cept the appointment and labour to the best of my feeble 
abilities, relying for the blessing on Him who alone can give 
success to the Word, but, if you can find a more suitable 
person to fill this place, I will most cheerfully retire to some 
less responsible station, where God in His providence may 
direct, but within the Valley. I must leave this for another 
subject. 

Yours &c., 

EZRA FISHER. 
N.B. — I am directed by the Board of the Gen. Association 
of Bapt. of Ind. to open a correspondence with you relative 
to the expediency of sustaining an agent a part of next year. 
You have doubtless before this time received a copy of the 
minutes of our Gen. Ass., which contain an abstract of Br. 
S. Harding's report for six months. He will probably raise 
more than half enough money to pay him, awaken an interest 
in a large number of churches and accomplish three times 
as much in preaching as he would if he had been located in 
the bounds of the churches which he ordinarily attends . . . 
Will you lay this subject before the Board and inform me 
before the first of January whether you will aid us another 
year in sustaining an agent eight or ten months in the same 
proportion as last year? The churches at Franklin and on 
Blue river, which Br. Harding formerly attended, think they 
can sustain him in the field all the time, if he can receive 
$100 from the Home M. S. the next year. Br. Morgan will 
receive little or nothing from the churches where he labours, 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 65 

unless windows should be made in heaven. Under these con- 
siderations, and believing Morgan equally as good an agent 
as Harding, the probability is that more will be secured to 
the cause by appointing him to this work than any other way 
we can do, imless you can help us to a man able to meet 
the western prejudices in this capacity. 

E. FISHER, Cor. Sec. 

P.S. — Aladison is now ready to receive a preacher of the 
right sort ; and if Br. Mathews does not go there, do not 
fail to send a suitable man if one can be found in the eastern 
states. 

Connersville is an important place for the Baptists, where 
a man of the right sort might soon be sustained. . . . Our 
great weakness consists in the want of a few strong men to 
place in the most important places. 

Br. Woods has gone to Logan Port. He needs a little of 
that excellent grace which so eminently characterized Job. 

E. F. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. S., 
Clinton Hall, 
New York City. 



Indianapolis, Dec. 23, 1834. 
Dear Brother : 

The second year of my labours in the service of the A. 
B. H. M. S. terminated yesterday. Although I have nothing 
very cheering to communicate in connection with my labours, 
yet on reviewing the influence which has been exterted on the 
Baptist cause in this place and vicinity, I trust my labours 
have not been wholly lost. Since the sickly season our con- 
gregations have become more numerous than they have ever 
been since we came to the place, and are very attentive. Be- 
yond this I see but little evidence of fruit. Our Sunday 
school has been better sustained than either of the other 
schools in town. 



66 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

The church is enjoying as great a degree of harmony as 
has ever been experienced, and our last church meeting was 
unusually interesting and two were received by letter. The 
cause of temperance is gradually gaining ground in the town 
and county. The cause of missions is gradually gaining 
ground in this (Indianapolis) Association, but it must still 
be years before the Association as a body will favour the 
measures. This church is almost unanimously friendly to 
benevolent operations, and I am fully convinced that almost 
all the opposition is kept alive by a few members. An im- 
provement is gradually going on in almost all the churches 
with which I am personally acquainted. In relation to an 
institution of learning under the direction of the Baptists 
in Ind., I fear nothing efficient will be done before next Oct., 
as it seems almost impracticable to bring the friends to- 
gether more than once in a year,-^ but the spirit is increasing. 
During the past quarter I have preached 36 times, attended 
teachers' meeting and S. S. 11 times each, heard 10 sermons, 
attended the General Association and one protracted meet- 
ing, three prayer meetings, three temperance meetings, three 
church meetings and one at Sick Creek. The church has re- 
ceived three by letter, two are waiting an opportunity, and I 
expect to baptize one soon. I have had a class of six or 
seven with whom I have spent from one hour to an hour and 
a half five days in a week for ten weeks, but do not think 
of hearing them more than two weeks, if I can meet the de- 
mands against me without. But the expenses of building 
have driven me to this alternative and I hope it will not 
prove any essential injury to the cause of Christ. ... I wrote 
you some time since signifying my acceptance of the ap- 
pointment for the ensuing year. This I did, however, hoping 
that, at the expiration of the year, you would find a more 
able man to sustain this place and give me an opportunity 
of locating in some less responsible place to which my tal- 



25 More was done in 1835 than the author foresaw. Important meetings of the 
Indiana Baptist Education Society were held in January and Tune of 1835. At the 
June meeting a board of directors was appointed, which had by October secured 
some land for the institution. — Thompson, in First Half Cent, of Franklin College, 
pp. 29-31. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 67 

ents will be equal. This town is emphatically a political one 
and the care of all the churches must come upon the minister 
locating here. . . . While I remain here I will endeavor to 
subserve the interest of our divine Redeemer to the extent of 
my abilities. 

Yours in the service of our common Lord, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N.B. — I wrote you some time since relative to the pros- 
pect of the A. B. H. M. S. uniting with the Gen. Ass. of 
Ind. in sustaining a traveling agent 9 or 10 months next 
year, and if you have not answered it, please do so soon. 

P. S. — Br. Bradley, the most efficient lay brother in the 
state, is now sick with a fever. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. S., 

Clinton Hall, New York City. 



Indianapolis, Feb. 5, 1835. 
Dear Brother : 

I take my pen to inform you that I have been solicited 
to become the Superintending Agent of Indiana for the 
American Sunday School Union,^^ and my friends in this 
place, both in the church and out, advise me to accept of 
the appointment on condition that I receive the commission, 
believing I shall be more useful to the cause in that capacity 
than to have my labours confined to this place. If the Board 
of A. S. S. U. should concur with the wishes of the Executive 
Committee of the Ind. S. S. U., I think favourably of the 
subject. In that case I shall have to request the Board of 
the A. B. H. M. Soc. to send to this place a man of suit- 
able talents as soon as he can be found. The door is fairly 
open, and I think half a man's salary might be made here 
the first year. We think of Br. George C. Sedwick, of Zanes- 
ville, Br. Cressey-'' of South Boston, and Br. Matthews, now at 



26. — The American Sunday School Union was organized in 1824. It immediate- 
ly began to employ missionaries to organize Sunday schools, in addition to provid- 
ing Sunday school literature. In 1830 it inaugurated a plan for establishing within 
two years a Sunday school in every needy settlement in the Mississippi Valley. — The 
New Shoff-Herzog Encyc. of Religious Knowledge, XI, 157-158. 



68 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

Lawrenceburg, and feel confident one of the three can be 
obtained. In case I engage in the S. S. business, I shall im- 
mediately correspond with some of the brethren, with the 
expectation that your Board will see that a suitable man is 
sustained here. 

The friends of education in Ind. met at this place the 14th 
and 15th of last month, formed an educational society,^^ 
adopted a constitution for a literary institution and resolved 
to decide on the place of location the first week in June, as 
you will probably learn by the Cross and Baptist Journal in 
the next number. There is a disposition to go ahead among 
some of the brethren, but we want a Moses and an Aaron to 
lead the great mass out from preconceived prejudices, by 
which they are more strongly bound than were the Israelites 
in Egypt. The cause is dying in Ind. for the want of a few 
strong men and for want of strong faith in those we now 
have. . . . Three or four men we must have the present 
year, if they can be had and, I had almost said, sustained, 
too, at your expense. Will your Board aid the Gen. Associa- 
tion in sustaining an agent 8 or 10 months the present year? 
On this subject we have received no answer from the letter 
I wrote you more than two months ago. The Board have 
resolved to put forth an efifort to raise $500 this year by 
$5 subscriptions. 

My health has been very poor the two past months from 
the prevailing influenza, but is now almost restored. 

S. S. flourishes and the cause in other respects remains 
much as usual, except a gradual increase of attendants at 
public worship the past winter, but things move very slowly. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, 
New York City. 



27 Rev. Timothy R. Cressy (1800-1S70), was with the author, both in college 
and seminary. He was pastor in Massachusetts and Ohio, and became oastor of the 
First church in Indiananolis in 1846. — Stott, Indiana Bapt. Hist., p. 147. 

28 See notes 22 and 25. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 69 

Indianapolis, March the 25, 1835. 
Rev. and Dear Sir: 

It becomes my duty to make my first quarterly report for 
this year, and for the quarter ending the 22d of the present 
month. I have preached the past quarter about 40 times, at- 
tended the S. school and teachers' meeting weekly, the usual 
temperance meetings, in one of which we have resolved to 
make an effort to organize a society in every preaching place 
in the county, if practicable, and I am appointed one of the 
committee to see this resolution carried into eft'ect ; assisted 
in the organization of a state Bapt. Ed. Soc.,^^ and framing 
a constitution for an institution of learning; devoted as much 
time to visiting as the state of my health and that of my 
family would admit. S. school flourishing and numbers 
about 90 students. Church in harmony, but religious interest 
remarkably low in the whole town. I have accepted of the 
appointment of S. S. Agent for the state and entered on the 
services the 23d. 

At the commencement of the year, when a subscription 
should have been opened for my support, Br. Bradley (on 
whom devolves a great part of the management of the 
church) was dangerously ill, and about the time the subject 
of my engaging in the S. S. cause began to be agitated, the 
brethren were about to open a subscription, but that pre- 
vented it and nothing has been said to me in relation to any 
compensation for the three months' services, excepting by 
one brother, who has paid me one dollar, and I presume noth- 
ing will be done, although every member of the church ap- 
proves of the plan of my future operations. AA^hile we have 
never more needed help, Mrs. F. has a young babe and we 
are obliged to keep a girl, while our other expenses have 
been considerably enhanced. ]My expenses for the past quar- 
ter have probably exceeded seventy-five dollars, exclusive of 
rents. I regret exceedingly to throw myself entirely on your 
Board for the past quarter. Under the present circum- 
stances I shall order you to pay fifty dollars for my services 



29 See notes 22 and 25. 



70 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

and I will lose the balance. I shall not be compelled to 
make any further draft on you for the ensuing year at least 
while perhaps I may promote the cause in our denomination 
more than I could at this place. 

We have had five added by letter the last quarter; our S. 
S. numbers 90 scholars, about 200 volumes in the library, 
have a society for domestic missions. 

Respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N.B. — The church have taken measures to request Br. 
Cressey to visit them, but the prospects for support are not 
so immediately flattering as last year, almost one-third of our 
supporters having removed and being about to remove from 
the place, and some of them our most efficient members. 
Yet the place is important, it being the capitol of the state. 
Nothing further will be done till we learn the mind of Br. C. 

Br. Woods, who is under appointment from your Board, 
has been at Logan Port five or six months, and his pros- 
pects as represented by him are flattering and lately some 
hopeful conversions ; he wrote me some time since that he 
feels peculiarly straitened for want of pecuniary resources, 
and says he shall be obliged to abandon the object of preach- 
ing in part, unless he can have more aid. I think the Gen. 
Association will make him $25, if the people at L. Port will 
raise $75. Will it not be best, in case he is disposed to re- 
main at L. Port, to make him up $250 from all sources for 
the present year? It costs more than twice as much to support 
a family at L. P. as it does a few miles further down in the 
country. That place is destined to become the Rochester of 
Ind.,^^ and Br. Wood's talents are equal to the place, if he 
does not faint by the way. I do not think a family can be 
supported there and a man save a few dollars annually for 
the infirmities of age short of $300 a year. 

We have heard nothing from you relative to the expedi- 
ency of sustaining a joint agent as last year in Ind. I think 

30 This prophecy about Logansport was only partly fulfilled. It has extensive 
railway shops and other manufactures, and in 1910 had a population of 19,000. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 71 

it doubtful whether a suitable person can be found in the 
state who will engage in that work. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, 

Baptist Mission Rooms, Clinton Hall, 
New York City. 



Indianapolis, Jan. 23, 1836. 
Dr. Going, 
Dear Sir: 
I take this opportunity to inform you of my designs rela- 
tive to my future course. My mind has been strongly in- 
clined towards the west part of the state of Illinois-'^ ever 
since I saw you at the Western Convention at Cincinnati. 
Yet the repeated solicitude of the friends in this state that 
I should devote myself to the interests of the Institution 
about to go into operation at Franklin for a while almost 
gained the ascendancy over my better judgment. Had I not 
been fully convinced that my health would not admit of a 
sedentary life, I should have consented to go into the Institu- 
tion as a teacher. Just at the time I declined being consid- 
ered a candidate for that place, I received a pressing invita- 
tion from the Board of the A. S. S. U. to continue in the 
work in which I am now engaged. But, for reasons which 
I suggested to you, I feel convinced that it is the will of the 
Almighty that I should decline engaging another year in that 
agency. I cherish the most cordial friendship to that insti- 
tution, but, if my labours are worth anything, they are more 
needed in the Baptist cause than in any other. I have there- 
fore determined to remove as early as the first of next April 
to one of the three following counties : Adams. Schuyler or 
Hancock, if I can be sustained in the work of the ministry. 
The brethren from Illinois informed me that their state con- 
vention has appropriated $100 to the church in Quincy, pro- 
vided they can obtain a suitable preacher. That, or Rush- 



si Illinois, with Indiana, had been having a very rapid growth at this time, 
just preceding the financial stringency of the later thirties. 



72 CORRESPOXDEX'CE OF THE 

ville, will probably be the place where I shall choose to la- 
bour. It would be gratifying to me to know whether I 
might expect any aid from the Bapt. Home Missionary So- 
ciety, in the event of my engaging in the ministry in one 
of those places, and not being entirely sustained by the 
churches with whom I labour. 

The institution at Franklin will probably go into operation 
as early as the 20th of May.-'- Br. Levernet will probably 
be the teacher for the first year. A building 38 by 26, one- 
story, is being erected, to be completed the first day of May. 
It is to contain a school room 26 feet square and a room 12 
by 14 as a study for the teacher. Between $4,000 and $5,000 
have been subscribed for this object, including the 88 acres 
of land. If Br. Morgan's health does not fail, I think he 
will increase the subscription the present year from $7,000 to 
$10,000 in the state. 

Under the present arrangement, little will be done for the 
General Association. Unless a few efificient men are sent 
out and almost entirely sustained in some of the prominent 
places in the state by the H. M. Soc, the cause must rise 
slowly for several years at least. With a very few excep- 
tions, there is nothing like an inclination in the churches to 
come up to their duty in the support of the gospel. The 
brightest prospects of the Bapt. cause stand connected with 
the anticipated institution at Franklin. Br. Spaulding has 
arrived at Laporte, and his prospects are the most flattering 
of any man in the state by far. The church expect to sup- 
port him and are determined to go to the work, relying upon 
God for success; and, if they bring their church to town, the 
members within six miles from the place are able to entirely 
sustain him. 

In determining on the future course of my life, I have 
been daily led to seek direction from the Most High, and, if 



32 Warren Leverett was elected as teacher, but never served. The building 
cost $350, and was finished about as indicated. For Rev. Lewis Morgan, see note 16. 
Of the eighty-eight acres, eight had been given and eighty purchased. The eighty- 
acre tract was later platted and sold off in lots for the benefit of the college. — 
Thompson, in First Half Cent, of Franklin College, pp. 30-33. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 73 

I have erred, I have done it seeking the path of duty, and the 
solicitude has been doubly increased from the consideration 
that in this matter I differ in opinion from so many of my 
dearest friends on earth. If, in the end, it is found that I 
have deviated from the path of duty, I trust the brethren 
will rather attribute it to a lack in judgment than an inclina- 
tion to disobey the calls of a gracious Providence. 

Yours affectionately, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D. 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, 

Baptist Mission Rooms, Clinton Hall, 
New York City. 



Quincy, Adams Co., 111., May 5, 1836. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D. 
Dear Br.: 
Agreeable to instructions communicated by Br. Luther 
Crawford from the Board of the A. B. H. M. Soc, I left In- 
dianapolis for this place the 12th of April, and, after more 
than three weeks of mud and chills and fever, by the blessing 
of Almighty God, I arrived at this place with my family yes- 
terday about 2 P. M., with my health improved. I find in 
this place and vicinity a small, feeble church, but apparently 
united in the bonds of the gospel. They have, however, been 
waiting in expectation of seeing a Br. Leach, from N. York 
state, as a preacher who wrote them last winter, giving them 
some encouragement that he would come out in May under 
the patronage of your Board. The brethren answered him 
some three months since, but have received no response. . . . 
They express little hope of seeing Br. L., and as individuals 
request me to stay with them at present and express the 
warmest feelings of gratitude to your Board that they have 
remembered Quincy. They think they must have preaching 
in town every Sabbath. I learn, however, that the church on 
Mill Creek, about 10 miles southeast of this, are expecting to 
share in the labours of the man who preaches at this place, 



74 CORRESPONDENXE OF THE 

and are willing also to share in the support of the gospel 
to the extent of their ability. Perhaps this course may be 
wise at present, if my labours should prove acceptable to 
both churches. . . . The town is elevated somewhat more 
than a hundred feet above high water mark on the bluff of 
the river, and delightfully situated in every respect, except 
that some parts of it are cut with deep ravines. . . . The 
river along the town washes a fine quarry of limestone, so 
as ■ to afford one of the finest landings for steamboats the 
whole length of the town. There the largest sized boats un- 
load their freight on the shore with the greatest convenience. 
The place contains about 1,000 inhabitants,-'-' and is improv- 
ing the present year more than in any three former years. 
The country, back through the county, is the most delight- 
fully rolling country and the most equally divided into tim- 
ber and prairie I ever saw in my life, and, in point of fertility, 
perhaps is not surpassed in the West. I wish you to send 
me a copy of the American Baptist directed to this place, 
and, if in the providence of the All-Wise, it may be my duty 
to locate in another place, I shall hereafter direct it to be 
sent there. I shall visit the churches in the adjacent coun- 
try as far as practicable and wait at this place the disposal 
of my future labours as God, and the churches, whose I wish 
to be, may direct. 

I remain. 
Yours in the bonds of Christian affection. 

EZRA FISHER. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, 
Clinton Hall, 
New York City. 



Quincy, Nov. 9, 1836. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D, 
Dear Br. : 
At the expiration of the first quarter after my arrival at 

33 In 1837, Quincy had a population of 1.653. — Am. Cyc, XIV, 153. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. * 75 

this place, I neglected making a quarterly report on account 
of my being unable to learn what part of my support could 
be raised in the two churches to which I preach. I will now 
proceed to report the substance of my labours for the last 
six months, ending the 4th instant. On my arrival I found 
the church in this place consisting of but 9 members. It was 
constituted in Aug., 1835, and left entirely destitute of 
preaching except two or three Sabbaths, when it was im- 
posed on by a man who proved an abandoned villain. . . . 
The brethren felt the need of a spiritual teacher, and re- 
ceived me with all the cordiality desirable. They had main- 
tained prayer and conference meetings twice each month for 
several months. I did not visit the Bethany church till June, 
but spent my time in this place doing what I could by visit- 
ing and preaching, except two Sabbaths, on one of which 
I was confined to my bed by chills and fever ;3'^ the other I 
spent at a three days' meeting with the Union church, 16 
miles N. E. from this, on Bear creek. I found the Bethany 
church, consisting of 13 members, 10 miles S. E. of this, in a 
most delightful part of the country, but surrounded by two 
anti-mission Bapt. churches and three of other denominations 
in the vicinity. Consequently the field of labour appeared 
quite limited and immediate prospects of usefulness rather 
forbidding, except that this little band of brethren were effi- 
cient members, and we had the assurance that ours was the 
cause of God and that truth is triumphant. I found this 
church sustaining a S. S. and Bible class, both of which con- 
sisted of the church members and their children. I preach 
regularly with this church on the first and third Sabbaths and 
on Sat. before the first, and attend the S. S. and B. class on 
my preaching days. The congregations here have been very 
small, till within the last six weeks, when they have nearly 
doubled. In July, two were added by letter, and. at the close 
of a three days' meeting last Sah.. I baptized one brother who 
professes to have found the Saviour about three weeks since. 

34 Malaria] fevers were very prevalent at this time in the Middle West, and 
the supposed freedom of Oregon from them was one of the causes leading to its 
settlement. 



76 • CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

The meeting was pleasingly interesting and solemn, especial- 
ly among the children, the brethren were revived, and the 
field seems widening in this section of the country. The 
congregations at Ouincy have been but a handful, except when 
I preach in the Congregational house, which has been almost 
every Sabbath for three months, when in town, and then the 
house is filled to overflowing. We have nothing but a small 
schoolroom to meet in as yet, but hope something will be 
done next summer. The interest seems gradually increasing 
and our meetings are becoming better attended. Our regular 
meetings here are preaching twice each Sab., when I am in 
the place, prayer meeting each Sab. night, prayer meeting 
each Friday night and church conference the 2nd and 4th 
Saturdays each month. The 4th Saturday in June a br., 
about 35 3^ears of age, and a young sister gave a relation of 
their Christian experience to the church, and the next day, 
in the presence of a large and attentive concourse, I had the 
happiness of burying them in baptism. The interest of the 
occasion to me was heightened by the reflection that the 
Father of mercies had conferred on me the honor of being the 
first Baptist minister to consecrate the Father of ^Vaters 
above the mouth of the Illinois. I was again permitted to 
administer the ordinance to a young br. on the 4th Sab. in 
September. This church has received seven by letter since I 
came to the place, so that our present number is 19. \\'e ex- 
pect several additions to each of these churches in a feu- 
weeks. We organized a small Sabbath school in this place 
about two months ago, which now numbers about 25 schol- 
ars. When in town, I attend the school regularly ; when ab- 
sent, the brethren sustain prayer meeting at the time of the 
morning services. Friday before the 5th Sabbath in July, I 
met with the ministers of Salem Association at Newhope 
church, McDonough Co., at which time we organized a ^Nlin- 
isters' Conference and held a protracted meeting. On the 
last Friday in Oct. we held a protracted meeting and Minis- 
ters' Conference at Warsaw, 35 miles above this place, on the 
river, and on the Sabbath I baptized an interesting young 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 11 

brother into the church at that place. I attended a called 
meeting of the State Convention at Springfield in Aug., but 
was prevented from attending the annual meeting in con- 
sequence of the sickness of Mrs. Fisher, who had the fever 
for the second time since our arrival. In addition to the la- 
bour, as named above, I have visited from house to house, 
preached occasionally, and directed my labours to those ob- 
jects which seemed most to demand my attention for the 
promotion of the cause. These little churches are composed 
of lively stones, and seem to me to be as praying a people 
as any with whom I have ever lived. For the last two 
months I think I have realized the importance of an entire 
consecration to the work of the Lord more than I have l^e- 
fore since I left Vermont. Yet I come far short of exercis- 
ing that apostolic faith which is indispensable to the success 
of a minister of Jesus Christ. O, that I might make the 
glory of God the reigning passion of my soul till the salva- 
tion of the Lord might go forth as brightness throughout this 
region ! By the signs of the times I am bid to believe that 
God will soon appear to build up His own Zion in this town 
and vicinity. This town is rapidly improving and, although 
about one-third of the present houses have been built since 
spring, yet everything that has the name of cabin is full, and 
numbers of families have been obliged to go to St. Louis 
to winter. Board is very high, rent is as high as in N. York 
City, wood is worth $4 per cord, and all kinds of provisions 
are high except corn. Common labourers earn their dollar 
a day and board, and woman's help is almost out of the 
question. Our brethren here think I cannot support my fam- 
ily short of $400 the present year, and I am convinced that 
I cannot do it comfortably for a less sum. The two churches 
think they can raise $200, but I expect it will fall somewhat 
short. Immediately after my arrival, the corresponding sec- 
retary of the State Convention gave me some encouragement 
that I should receive $100 from that source, but I have not 
yet learned whether I shall realize anything from that source. 
As soon as I hear from him I will write vou. I have neces- 



78 CORRESPOXDEN'CE OF THE 

sarily incurred above $100 of debts since my arrival ; more 
than I am able to meet at present. I shall order you to pay 
$50 in a few days, 

I remain, dear br., yours in Christian esteem, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Society, 
Clinton Hall, 
New York City. 



Quincy, Adams County, 111., March 30. 1837. 
To the Corresponding Secretaries of the A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Beloved Brethren : 
I hasten to comply with a request I have just noticed in 
the Pioneer. -^5 Our mails being so irregular at this season of 
the year that my papers have been delayed about two weeks, 
must be the only apology if this fails of reaching you in due 
time. I have laboured in the service of the Society since the 
first of last April. . . . Have supplied the church at this 
place half the time and the Bethany church the remaining 
half. We trust there have been six or eight cases of hopeful 
conversions connected with my congregation in this place. 
Six have been added to this church by baptism and seven- 
teen by letter ; one to the Bethany church by baptism and four 
by letter. I have also baptized one into the church at War- 
saw, to which Br. N. Parks preaches. A small Sab. school 
and Bible class is sustained in the Bethany church during 
the warm season of the year. We have constituted a small 
Sunday school at Quincy, which is sustained through the 
winter, and two of the scholars and one of the teachers have 
become hopefully pious. One hundred and twenty-five dol- 
lars are pledged towards my support in this place, and sev- 
enty-five at Bethany. The church in this place have contrib- 
uted in aid of the 111. S. S. Union and the 111. Bapt. Ed. 
Socy. ; the Bethany church have contributed in aid of the 



35 The "Pioneer" was a Baptist paper, first published in 1829, in Illinois, by 
Rev. J. M. Peck.— Bap. Home Missions in N. Am., 1832-1882, p. 305 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 79 

A. Bible Soc, and the A. & F. Bible Soc, pledged something 
in aid of the 111. Bapt. Ed. Socy., and contributed to the 111. 
State Convention. Efforts have been made by both churches, 
in connection with our fellow citizens, in favor of temper- 
ance, and the cause is making very laudable advances. At 
the last three monthly meetings in this place, more than 
100 members were added ; the first of these meetings I ad- 
dressed. Ten copies of religious periodicals are taken here, 
and six at Bethany. As yet but a few hundred pages of 
tracts have been distributed, but I hope in a few days to re- 
ceive a packet from Alton. . . . The churches, although 
small, are willing to do their duty when they learn it, and it 
has never fallen to my lot to labour in a more inviting field. 
The church in this place at the last meeting expressed a vote 
of thanks to the Home Mission Soc'}- for the services ren- 
dered them in sending them a preacher and aiding in his 
support the present year, and, in view of the rising interests 
in this place, resolved that it was their duty to use every 
laudable means to sustain the gospel all the time in Quincy. 
They further resolved that they would sustain a preacher 
the whole time the ensuing year, provided the Home Mis- 
sionary Soc'y would appropriate two hundred dollars to- 
wards that object, and invited me to preach with them all 
the time. I have not yet given them an answer, although it 
is my decided opinion they should have the entire labours 
of a preacher. I cannot sustain my family for a less sum 
than four hundred dollars a year . . . and I shall be impelled 
to preach a part of the time to the Bethany church ... or 
be dependent upon the liberality of your Soc'y for half my 
support. The brethren here say, two or three years and God 
working with them, they hope to be able to sustain the 
cause at home and help in sending it beyond them. That 
you may be the better able to judge relative to my duty, I 
will notice a few facts relative to this place. 

The church, although few in number and poor, have re- 
solved on building a house of worship, about forty-five feet 
by fifty-five, with a basement . . . for a school, and have 



80 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

secured, a lot six rods square, twelve rods north of the N. W. 
corner of the public square . . . for eight hundred dollars on 
a credit, have subscribed about eleven hundred dollars to- 
wards erecting a house, and have increased the subscription 
about four hundred more' from the citizens. We feel as 
though our condition would justify us in adopting the too 
fashionable practice of asking aid of our more able churches 
in the accomplishment of this work. Would we not be justi- 
fied in sending some one to solicit aid from the eastern 
churches in the accomplishment of this work? The town is 
growing (according to the common phraseology of the West) 
with almost unparalleled rapidity. More than fifty frames 
have gone up for dwellings and stores since the breaking up 
of the winter, and the work of the season is hardly com- 
menced. Rent is higher at this time than at any former 
period. The state legislature have undertaken the construc- 
tion of a railroad from Quincy, through Jacksonville and 
Springfield, to intersect the Wabash and Erie canal at La- 
fayette, Ind., which, when completed, will open a direct line 
of communication with Buffalo, and thence up to Albany 
and New York. The Congregational church sustain a preach- 
er all the time. The Methodists one, and, in case of emerg- 
ency, two. The Congregationalists are about to build a 
house to cost at least ten thousand dollars. Last year the 
Methodists built a house fifty feet square, with a basement 
. . . and are calling on the public for aid to pay ofif their old 
debts. The Lutherans are about sustaining a preacher, and 
have secured a lot for a house. The Catholics have secured 
a lot and are circulating their paper for a church, and the 
Episcopal church are circulating their paper, soliciting aid 
for erecting a chapel. Under these circumstances, compara- 
tively little can be done without a suitable house and a man 
on the ground. 

While I write, it becomes my duty to represent the case 
of the Bethany church. The church have agreed to purchase 
a lot the present week in West Union, a little town rising up 
in their midst, and intend building a house of worship this 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 81 

year or next. . . . They are few in number, consisting of but 
eighteen or nineteen, yet they are able and willing, for a new 
country, and if they had a minister settled with them whom 
they esteemed, they would take care of him to about $100 
the first year. Although they were quite circumscribed last 
spring by means of two anti-mission churches and an Arian 
church, yet their field is becoming cleared, and I know of no 
church in the vicinity more worthy a good minister than 
they. They manifest an unwillingness to give me up. They 
want a man capable of teaching them and with a good share 
of common sense. A man located with them would find as 
inviting a field before him in the rising towns in the south 
part of this co., and in the north of Pike, as the state can af- 
ford, leaving out a few of the prominent points. This church 
is surrounded with a country unrivaled in point of beauty of 
scenery and fertility of soil. 

Yours with esteem, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — I shall probably comply with the invitation of the 
Quincy church, believing that you will judge it my duty on 
the whole to devote my labours to this place and its imme- 
diate vicinity. 
Rev. Jonathan Going, D. D., 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Socy, 

Baptist Mission Rooms, Clinton Hall. 
New York City. 



Quincy, Adams Co.. 111., May 11, 1837. 
To the Corresponding Secretaries A. B. H. M. Soc, 
Messrs. Going and Crawford . 

Beloved Brethren : 
I now take pen to report my labours from March the 30th 
to May the 4th. . . . Since my last report we have had no 
alterations in our churches. My labours have been bestowed 
as usual. Our Sabbath congregations are rather increasing 
at both places, but the pressure of worldly business in the 



82 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

opening of the spring, together with circumstances beyond 
our control, has brought about declension of vital piety in 
both the churches. . . . The brethren in Quincy are making 
some efforts to improve singing in public worship, but, com- 
ing as we have from the several parts of the Union, we ex- 
pect our advances in this work will be slow. We shall prob- 
ably commence the work for a house of worship the present 
year, although it is extremely expensive building this year 
(never more so). 

I failed of attending the Ministers' Conference of Salem 
Association the last of April in consequence of the sickness 
of my little daughter, but learn that the meeting was inter- 
esting. The subject of the expediency of taking measures to 
get up a high school on the Military Tract was discussed 
and some preparatory measures were adopted, such as the 
appointment of a committee to look out a suitable location. 

The plan is somewhat novel, but, with a little capital and 
skill, it may eventually succeed. The plan is to enter Con- 
gress land, as much as can be done by inducing individuals 
to make investments, and lay off a town, one-fourth of all 
the property invested to be appropriated to the public school. 
It is supposed by some that $2,000 or $3,000 can easily 
be found for the commencement of the work. 

In reviewing the labours of my past year, although im- 
peded by sickness of my family, and more by a want of a 
devout temper of mind and faith in God, I can do no less 
than say, with emotions of gratitude to the great Head of 
the church : "Hitherto the Lord hath helped us." The first 
l)low has been struck, the field opened for more extensive 
labours, eight have been baptized, twenty-one have been add- 
ed by letter, one Sabbath school has been put in operation and 
another sustained, a lot ha? been secured for a meeting house 
in Quincy and the Bethany church have secured one for the 
same purpose in West Union, a town in the vicinity, $200 
has been raised for the support of the gospel, about $1,600 
subscribed for a meeting house, and several benevolent in- 
stitutions have been patronized. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 83 

How and where I spend the ensuing year will depend in 
part upon the decision of the Ex. Com. of the A. B. H. M. 
Society. 

I have already informed you that the Quincy church wish 
my labours all the time, and have resolved to raise $200 for 
the next year, provided the Home Missionary Society will 
raise the rest of my support. I shall not give my answer 
till I hear from you on this subject. Bethany church still 
ask as great a portion of my labours as they can have. I 
have given you my views relative to the importance of th?t 
field. 

Yours with esteem, 

.... EZRA FISHER. 



Quincy, Adams Co., 111., Nov. 29, 1^37. 
Dear Br. Crawford : 

I take pen ... to report for the first six months of the 
year commencing May the 5th. 

In view of all circumstances, I have concluded that it was 
my duty to spend my whole time in this place the piesent 
year and hazard consequences. At the commencement of 
the year, the brethren agreed to raise $200 towards my sup- 
port the current year, but their extra efforts to build a house 
will probably cause some retrenchments on that sum. We 
have experienced no signal displays of grace the present year. 
I have baptized but one, and four have been received by let- 
ter, making, after dismissing one, 36. I preach twice each 
Sabbath, attend prayer meeting on Sabbath and Friday even- 
ings each week, beside the other public meetings for moral 
reform in the place, and visit as much as practicable. We 
still sustain a small Sunday school. Our congregations fill 
the small schoolroom, which we occupy, to overflowing and 
would probably soon double if we had a convenient place. 
A tolerable degree of harmony pervades the church at pres- 
ent. We have raised by subscription about $2,000 towards 
building a house forty feet by fifty, have the walls for the 



84 CORRESPOXDEX'CE OF THE 

basement story up and expect the frame will go up early in 
the spring. We have our fears in relation to the event, but 
we had about $1,500 on our subscription before the money 
pressure came on,-'^ and to alter materially the size of the 
house or to delay one year would render valueless much of 
the subscription. (Within the last three or four weeks I 
have laboured part of the time to render my family com- 
fortable, and shall be under the necessity of doing something 
more to sustain my family in a town where almost every 
item of consumption is as high as in New York or Boston. 
I mention this fact that you may be apprised of the course I 
must necessarily pursue. Although nothing but necessity 
would induce me to entangle myself with the affairs of this 
world, I am willing that the world may know that I can, 
with Paul, use these hands to minister to my necessities.) 
The cause is evidently advancing in this (Salem) Associa- 
tion, which includes almost the whole ^Military Tract north 
of the south line of Adams County. As a body it is in favour 
of sending the word of God and His servants to the ends 
of the earth. 

Quincy now contains 1,653 souls, according to the census 
just taken, showing an increase of more than 900 within the 
last two years. 

We expect the railroad, from this place through Jackson- 
ville and Springfield to intersect the Wabash and Erie Ca- 
nal, will be put under contract the present winter for thirty 
or forty miles, commencing at this place, so that the work 
may be commenced in the spring. Our whole country is 
destitute of Baptist preaching, except for my own labours 
and those of two brethren who preach, each of them, one 
Sabbath each month, but reside out of the county. It may be 
said with emphasis that the fields are white already for the 
harvest. But we are well supplied in comparison to the 
region bordering on the river for 500 miles north of this, 
including the north part of this state and Wisconsin Terri- 



36 This was the effect of the financial panic of 1836, which for a time prostrated 
business in the Middle West. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 85 

tory. We may well ask the question, How can all this mul- 
titude be fed, since our men and available means are so few? 

I shall soon make a draft on you for fifty dollars. I sub- 
scribe myself your brother and fellow labourer in the gospel 
of the Kingdom. 

EZRA FISHER. 



Quincy, Adams Co., 111., March 22^, 1838. 
Mr. Luther Crawford, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br.: 

The health of my family has deterred me from sooner an- 
swering your request in your circular, Mrs. F. having a 
young child and it being impracticable to find help in this 
place. Added to this, I have been engaged in teaching a 
common school for the past six weeks to meet the expenses 
of the family. But enough of apologies. I shall have la- 
boured twelve months for the Society on the first of April. 
My labours have been mostly confined to this place. . . . \^'e 
have received one by baptism, and eleven by letter. There 
have been one or two hopeful cases of conversion during the 
past winter. The church have for the first time . . . resolv- 
ed to take up quarterly collections in aid of Foreign Missions, 
Home Missions, American and Foreign Bible Society and 
Educational Society, these to be taken up the first Sabbath 
in April, July, October and January. As a church we have 
done nothing for any of these objects, although individuals 
have done something. I have distributed about 2,000 pages 
of tracts. Those exhibiting the peculiar doctrines of the de- 
nomination are much needed in general among the members, 
to say nothing of the community in general. We have a 
small Sunday school, which has been in rather a languishing 
state for six months past, yet is rather increasing of late, 
numbering from ten to twenty scholars. A Bible class, just 
organized of about ten young men and women, promises to 
be a powerful auxiliary to the preaching of the Word. We 



86 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

have a library of about 50 volumes in the Sunday school. 
Most of the church are members of the temperance society 
and are ready to give their voices in favour of all the socie- 
ties of moral reform in the land, and some at least let their 
cry go up to Him, who has made of one blood all nations 
that dwell on the face of the earth, that He may in His 
wisdom cause every yoke to be broken and the oppressed 
everywhere to go free. 

Our meeting house is now on our hands and our breth- 
ren's hearts are almost fainting lest, when the house is erect- 
ed to the worship of God, it shall be sold to the service of 
Satan. If we had anticipated the present pressure every- 
where, we should certainly have built small ; but so it is. 
We were disappointed in from $600 to $1,000 in the case of 
one brother in one of the Atlantic states, and in our hopes of 
sending and soliciting from some of our more able churches. 
If we had had a suitable place of worship last summer and 
winter, our congregation would probably have been double 
the present number, to say nothing of other embarrassing 
circumstances under which we labour. 

We have two promising young brethren in the church who 
have commenced their studies (with a view of engaging in 
the ministry) at a manual labour school, under the direction 
of Dr. Nelson, about five miles from this place. The success 
of Dr. N.'s school has strongly suggested the expediency of 
the Baptists starting a school on the same plan somewhere 
on the Mississippi between this place and the mouth of Rock 
river. The plan is novel, but one which would naturally sug- 
gest [itself when] without funds. 

The church still solicit a continuance of my labours and 
the further aid of your body. They are doing all they can to 
sustain the cause. 

You may ask why our S. S. and other societies are so 
small. I have only two causes to oflfer among the many 
that might be named. The field had been reaped again and 
again before the Baptists raised the standard or thrust in the 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 87 

sickle. The other cause weighs ten fold more than that. 
Our house of worship is only 18 by 20 feet, and at that a 
dirty school room. This is the best we have in prospect till 
we have a house. 

The present population of the place is not much short 
of 2,000 and weekly increasing. A railroad, intersecting the 
Wabash and Erie Canal at La Fayette, Indiana, and termi- 
nating at this place, is about being constructed, and about 
one hundred miles will be under contract next month. This 
and the fact that I am the only missionary Baptist preacher 
in Adams County, a territory about 30 miles square, will sug- 
gest to you the propriety of holding on at this place. Al- 
though we have no business men, nor men of wealth in the 
church, we are sure things will not long remain so. On the 
whole, the prospects are encouraging in this county, as well 
as in this place, and we are much needing three or four 
faithful men to devote their time to the work in the county. 
The church which I found numbering nine, one-third of 
which were either unacquainted with missionary operations 
or opposed to them, numbers about thirty-eight at this iime, 
with fewer of the anti-effort members than at first. The 
change has taken place harmoniously, although a few months 
ago we feared we might experience a serious rupture, 'i ^^ ^ 
members, Campbellites in sentiment, came forward at our 
last meeting and asked a letter of dismission, whicn was 
readily granted, specifying the cause, and no unkind feelings 
were manifested by either party. 

I have found it necessary to teach a quarter in order to 
sustain my family. What would you think of the plan of 
my removal to Texas after this church get their meeting 
house so far completed as to be able to worship in it, say 
next fall or the following spring? I must say the subject 
has rested with some weight on my mind and, if I were sure 
duty called, I would not be disobedient to the Divine will. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 



88 CORRESPONDEXXE OF THE 

N. B. — Owing to the circumstance of our brethren having 
the meeting house constantly on hand, they probably will 
not raise more than half as much by subscription for my 
support the year ending the fifth of May next as they antici- 
pated. This is my only apology for . . . teaching. Yet they 
have been very kind in presents to my family. About the 
first of January they appointed a day in which they made us 
a donation visit and brought in about $25 worth of presents. 
As a body they are as kind and attentive to me as any of 
the New England churches are to their pastors, and deeply 
regret that they can do no more. 

I wish not to have you infer from the suggestion I made 
in relation to Texas that I am dissatisfied with either this 
church or place. This place will soon ask for a man of 
popular talents, and should have one. This being a popular 
state in the N. E., many . . . will be willing to fill this place 
where one will be willing to accept the privations of becom- 
ing a pioneer in that important field. Probably my consti- 
tution is as well adapted to that climate as to this. 



Quincy, 111., May 14, 1838. 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br. Crawford : 
The year of my appointment in the service of the Board 
. . . closed the fourth ult., and it devolves on me to make 
a report of my labours since the time of my annual report, 
which was in March last. My labours have been much the 
same as formerly, w^hen I have written, except that there was 
a failure on the part of the church of $100 towards my sup- 
port. This subjected me to the necessity of teaching a quar- 
ter, which increased my labours beyond my strength, and 
compelled me to suspend to a great extent my pastoral 
visits, which are always the most useful part of a stated 
preacher's services — at least indispensable. 

Our place of worship is altogether too strait for us, but 
we hope, almost against hope, that in a few months we shall 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 89 

be able to go into some part of our house, now in an ad- 
vancing state. The field of labour for Baptists in town and 
vicinity is gradually enlarging and, perhaps, there are not 
more than three places in the state which call for the undi- 
vided labours of faithful servants of Christ more than this. 
We have had some changes since I last wrote, three of our 
members having left us with a design of going over to the 
Reformers, so-called, and perhaps, when you next hear from 
me, some two or three more may have taken the same road. 
But this has been done without difficulty, and, I had almost 
said, without trial, as it is but what we have anticipated for 
more than a year. We can say in the language of inspira- 
tion, "They went out from us because they were not of us." 
These changes have left the church almost entirely of one 
heart and one mind, and, while we have spared some of our 
numbers, we have been receiving others, so that at the pres- 
ent time our little band has increased from nine to some- 
what more than forty, since God in His providence directed 
us to this place. 

Our Sabbath school is small and Bible class rather inter- 
esting, embracing a considerable portion of the church. A 
majority of our members living in the country, our evening 
prayer meetings are but thinly attended, but we sustain them 
as often as twice each week. Temperance lectures are given 
almost monthly in the place, and most of our members are 
interested. 

The church think they can raise $200 the coming year for 
my support, and have the subscription made up, at this time, 
within about $40. It is due to the church to say that last 
year's failure occurred because of the meeting house sub- 
scription being the engrossing subject. Although they failed 
in this, they have been kind in presents, so that we shall 
probably be able to meet the expenses of the year. If they 
had the house ofif their hands, with the probable increase 
in membership, I think they will gladly sustain a minister 
in two years from this, and, from that time, you may expect 



90 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

they will repay the H. M. Soc. by aiding them in sending 
the gospel beyond them. They have voted thanks for past 
favours to your Board and solicit your aid this year also. 

This church is truly becoming one of the most pleasant 
churches in the land, and will soon become one of the most 
desirable situations for an efficient preacher in the whole 
West. 

It would require $500 to sustain a man with a small family 
in this place so that he could devote, in the best manner, his 
labours to the work. The way in which I bring around the 
year is by uniting industry and economy with self denial. I 
keep no horse and, of course, whenever I go five or ten miles 
to preach, I imitate the example of our blessed Redeemer, 
but I cannot do so much in the surrounding country where 
labour is greatly needed. When my family are sick or 
feeble, instead of paying from $2 to $4 per week for a girl, 
which must be the case where help is hired, I must give the 
best care I can, with the aid of Christian friends. 

In a review of the two years since we have been in this 
place, I have found the promise, "My grace is sufificient for 
you," very precious to me. I feel that I am a frontiersman, 
and when God in His providence shall indicate to me that 
this place demands another than a frontier man, if my health 
and that of my family admit, I hope once more to take a 
frontier post. Did you ever think how comfortable Paul 
must have felt, while, relying on the grace of God, he could 
have the reflection to cherish, that he had so striven to 
preach the gospel faithfully, not where Christ was named 
lest he should build upon another man's foundation, but 
that they to whom he was not spoken of should see ; and 
they that had not heard should understand? 
Yours in the bonds of the gospel, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — Yours by the hand of Br. Ford was kindly received. 
Br. Ford has preached one Sabbath at Payson. I have not 
yet learned what are his prospects. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 91 

In relation to Texas, I have for four or five months felt 
strong desires to see that field of labour, and the more I 
think on the subject the more the arguments which induced 
me to decide on leaving the New England states for the 
Valley, operate to induce me to think it may before long be 
my duty to remove to Texas. The argument is simply this, 
that scores of eastern men may be induced to come to this 
state where one will be induced to go to Texas. As relates 
to the unsettled state of Texas, I judge, from all the infor- 
mation I can gather from one of their papers, published at 
the seat of Government, and coming regularly to this place, 
that they now have little to fear from Mexico, and probably 
by the opening of another spring, or even sooner^ the door 
will be open so far as civil revolution stands connected with 
the cause of Christ. I suppose that the fall, about the first 
of November, would be as good a part of the year to go 
from this place to Texas as any.^^ 

P. S. — Last Saturday two came forward to the church and 
related their experience and were received for baptism, and 
on the Sabbath I baptized one of them ; probably one more 
will relate her experience soon ; these have been subjects 
of grace during last winter. I shall make a draft on you of 
fifty dollars soon. 

Yours, E. F. 



Quincy, Adams Co., 111., Aug. 14, 1838. 
Rev. Luther Crawford, 
Dear Br.: 
I now take my pen to make my quarterly report in brief. 
The scenes through which God in His wise providence has 
called us to pass since I last wrote have been varied. Two 
weeks ago last Friday we were called to consign to the em- 
brace of death our infant daughter, after an illness of ten 
days. We feel the stroke and hope we have kissed the rod, 



37 It will be remembered that Texas was already fairly well settled by Ameri- 
cans, and that attention had been drawn to it by its war of independence in 1835 
and 1836. 



92 CORRESPOXDEN'CE OF THE 

humbly acknowledging the kindness of a Father's hand in 
the afflictive providence. We trust, we sincerely pray that, 
by this event, we may be the better prepared to devote our- 
selves successfully to the work of proclaiming the glad tid- 
ings of salvation to a lost race. 

My labours have been confined to this place and vicinity 
the last three months, except that I have attended one pro- 
tracted meeting at Payson in May and the church conference 
the first Saturday of June and July and preached on the suc- 
ceeding Lord's days at the same place. The church is in- 
creasing in that place in numbers and strength. I also 
preached the last Sabbath in July to the church near Fair- 
field, sixteen miles northeast from this place. At present 
this church have preaching once each month, but they are 
soon expecting Br. Segur from Jemaica, Long Island, to be- 
come their pastor, and a large portion of his present church 
to accompany him. My labours have been much the same 
in this place as when I last reported, except that the field is 
gradually enlarging and sickness and death have been more 
frequent visitants among us than normal. Two of our num- 
ber have fallen by death within the last three months ; one 
of these was a very active sister, who died instantly by being 
thrown from a wagon. I have baptized one into the fellow- 
ship of this church since I last wrote ; an interesting sister. 
Our meeting house moves on slowly ; we shall probably have 
it enclosed and the floors laid in both stories, so as to be 
able to meet in the basement story before cold weather, but 
we shall, for our strength, have a heavy debt hanging over us. 
Yet we are moving on with it better than we feared. We shall 
perhaps eventually have to be driven to the painful necessity 
of begging from our eastern churches, as our last resort, in 
case of the property being put in jeopardy. 

Our Sabbath school is rather increasing the present sum- 
mer, and a Bible class has been organized. ... I intend es- 
tablishing two or three regular weekly preaching places 
within ten miles of town as soon as the sickly season and 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 93 

our public meetings are past, which will not be till about 
the middle of October. Please write me immediately relative 
to the cause in Texas, if you have any information. I wish 
you to inform me if you have a correspondence open with 
the Texas church, and, if so, whether there are any insur- 
mountable obstacles to sending the gospel to that people 
also. Men go there and venture their lives and fortunes for 
the sake of Mammon, notwithstanding that the affairs of the 
Government may be in an unsettled state. I am inclined to 
think, from what I can learn, that public confidence is being 
confirmed in the stability of the Government, to say nothing 
of the course which our nation has pursued in relation to 
the independence of Texas. I learn that the English govern- 
ment has entered into a treaty of commerce with Texas, 
which I suppose is virtually recognizing its independence.^^ 
The relation which France sustains to Mexico contributes its 
portion to cheer the prospects of Texas. The fact that the 
English language is rapidly advancing westward, and the 
thought that the power of the Pope must soon be broken in 
all the republics of Spanish America, to me are strong argu- 
ments why Baptists should be first in the field. Will you 
inform me in what place the Texas Bapt. church is located, 
or rather who will be the proper man for me to address by 
letter and where he resides. I see subscribed to the letter 
of the Texas church addressed to you some months since. 
as early as January, the following names as the committee : 
A. Buffington, Z. N. Morrell and Jas. R.Jenkins, but see noth- 
ing by which I can determine their postoffice address. I am 
willing once more to enter a new field of labour, if it is appar- 
ent that duty calls, and to make all secondary causes yield to 
the great work of preaching a Crucified Saviour. I say I am 
willing. I think I can say I desire it. The church in this 
place and the brethren in the surrounding churches are kind 



38 The United States acknowledjred Texan independence in 1837. France in 
1839, Belgium and Holland in 1840. A treaty with Great Britain recognizing Texan 
independence was signed in 1840. British influence in Texas was much feared by 
the United States in 1842 and 1843. — G. P. Garrison, Westward Extension (Ameri- 
can Nation Series), pp. 96, 113. The report quoted by the author of a treaty with 
Great Britain was evidently false. 



94 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

to me and family, more so, according to ability, than in any 
place we ever lived, and the field is wide here, but you will 
probably much more readily find a man for this place than 
for the unexplored field of Texas. Indeed, I suppose this 
church could find a man of their choice who would willingly 
heed their call in three months, if I were to remove. As it 
respects the expense of living in Texas, if it now is an ob- 
jection, that difficulty will probably be measurably obviated 
after gathering the crops of the present year. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — I forgot to notice in its appropriate place the fact 
that the church at Ouincy have a subscription for my sup- 
port the present year amounting to $200, which will prob- 
ably be all realized, also that we have taken up a small col- 
lection of something less than five dollars for the A. & F. 
Bible Soc, and lately a collection of five dollars and seventy- 
two cents for the Foreign Mission cause. Next quarterly 
collection is Home Missions, then will follow, the ensuing 
quarter, a collection for the Education Soc. We can do but 
little for these objects, however important, till our meeting 
house is out of danger. 

Yours, 

E. F. 



Ouincy, Nov. 12, 1838. 
Rev. Luther Crawford, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. Miss. Soc. 
Dear Br.: 

... I have laboured much as usual in this place and vi- 
cinity the past three months, but, having been engaged in 
attending public meetings about half the time, I can hardly 
say that I think the cause has advanced materially. Indeed, 
our Sabbath school and Bible class have almost become ex- 
tinct ; there were but the relics of them to be found yester- 
day. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 95 

Our Association, which held its session on the last of 
Aug. and the first of Sept., was interesting, except that the 
year showed a barrenness. On Sabbath I preached in favour 
of Home Missions, after which a collection was taken up 
amounting to $24.50. Here I will mention that the collec- 
tion in Quincy church for that object has been deferred for 
some weeks on account of the smallness of our congrega- 
tions. It will be very small, but we shall give that subject 
a place in three or four weeks. We are still cramped for 
want of a house to worship in. It is somewhat doubtful 
whether we shall be able to occupy any part of our house 
till spring, but we talk of making a new effort to fit up a 
part of the basement. I attended the State Conv. at Jack- 
sonville. The interest of the meeting was somewhat dimin- 
ished in consequence of the absence of a large number of 
our ministers and business lay members, occasioned by sick- 
ness in part. The principal business at the Convention was 
the devising of a plan for putting into operation an itinerat- 
ing system of preaching in the state and an attempt to raise 
the Pioneer out of the mud in which at present it seems 
stalled. Soon after my return from the Conv., I attended a 
protracted meeting at Payson, Bethany church, commencing 
Thursday before the 4th Sabbath in Oct. In the very com- 
mencement of the meeting, we saw visible indications of Di- 
vine favour by a voluntary disposition on the part of the 
church to work for the Lord and to humble themselves be- 
fore the Cross of Christ. Several Sabbath school children 
were soon found ready to ask God's people to pray for them. 
On the Sabbath I baptized a sister of the Methodist Church 
and, before the close of the day, some two or three precious 
youths were hoping in a Saviour's atoning blood. The work 
had by this time assumed such a character that we judged 
it duty to continue the meeting. On Monday, Br. Thomas 
H. Ford was set apart by solemn ordination, after examina- 
tion, with the following exercises : Ordaining prayer by Bro- 
ther Jacob Bowen : imposition of hands by the Presbytery ; 
charge by Br. Ezra Fisher ; hand of fellowship of the 



96 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

churches by Br. Jesse Elledge ; address to the church by Br. 
Aaron Trabne ; hymn and benediction by the candidate. Br. 
Ford will probably labour hereafter mostly with the Gr'ggs- 
ville church. The religious interest continued through the 
week . . . and on the first Sabbath of this month I baptized 
ten candidates into the Kingdom of Christ, after which I 
continued with the church till the next Friday, and before I 
left two more were received for baptism. The work seemed 
still going on, although the weather had become so very dis- 
agreeable that our meetings became thin. The brethren en- 
gaged at intervals in this meeting were Brethren Kimball, 
Bowen, Ford, Trabne, Elledge, Bailey and Cofifey, a licen- 
tiate. I had omitted to mention that I baptized a young 
sister into this church (Quincy) on the 3rd Sabbath in Oct. 
The Bethany church feels as though they are now able to 
support a minister without troubling the Home Missionary 
Soc'y., and they will soon be able to aid in sending the Gos- 
pel beyond them. . . . 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Quincy. 

N. B. — In relation to the subject of my removal to Texas, 
I must say that to me it is not an uninteresting subject. I 
commend the prudent course your committee have adopted 
in relation to this subject. What, and how many may be 
the obstacles in the way of my preaching a crucified, risen 
Saviour in that important field I am entirely unable to say, 
and whether my desires on this subject will ever be gratified 
depends on so man}^ circumstances that I am entirely un- 
able to determine . . . what I shall do. . . . WHiatever may 
be the final issue in this case, I am sure that I have had it in 
my heart to go to Texas. The argument which you urge 
against my going, . . . that I am doing tolerably well at 
present, has been the strong argument which wise men have 
urged against my removal in every case since I was first 
settled in Cambridge, Vt. Put this reason beside the one 
furnished you by your reporter, that I adhere tenaciously to 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 97 

my Yankee notions, and see the paradox. In relation to this 
subject, I would say that my Indiana friends were entirely 
western and I had as fully the confidence of these men as 
I ever had of any people ; and now the western men of a 
neighboring church are, as individuals, pledging their word 
that I shall have a support, if I will consent to receive an in- 
vitation from their church to become their pastor, and this, 
too, in full view of my course in relation to that exciting- 
subject, slavery. •'''' ... .1 sincerely thank you for your kind- 
ness in alluding to this subject, and I can assure you that my 
general course is to conform to established usages as far as 
practicable, if these usages are not sinful. . . . However, 
considerations like those suggested never chained the master 
spirit of Paul. ... So far as relates to my own health, and 
that of my family, I am not at all certain that in the aggre- 
gate the climate in this place is prejudicial. But suppose 
that of Texas should be, if other men do not occupy that 
field, should this fact justify me in abandoning it? Men 
straight from New York hazard their all in the most un- 
healthy points in the whole of that country for the sake of 
pelf, and shall Christ's ministers suffer to pass unheeded 
the promptings of His Spirit from such considerations? I 
hold this as an irreducible axiom that duty and happiness 
are inseparably connected. When convinced of the divine 
Will in relation to my life, I know I shall be the most 
happy and useful in following His admonitions. I wait with 
anxiety to learn from Br. Orr the wants of Texas. 

Yours, E. FISHER. 



Quincy, 111.. March 29. 1839. 
Corresponding Secretary of the American 

Baptist Home Missionary Societ}'. 
Respected Br. : 

I have delayed making my quarterly report al^out two 
weeks, expecting to learn the name of the l^rother appointed 

' 39 The author had strong anti-slavery convictions. 



98 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

in the place of Br. Crawford, deceased.'*^ The name not yet 
appearing in the Banner and Pioneer, I have concluded to 
delay no longer. I have little of importance to communicate 
relative to my labours since I last wrote. I have preached 
as usual in this place. About two months since, we removed 
from the schoolroom, which we occupied for two years, to 
a larger and more convenient room for public worship, and 
soon found it filled on the Sabbath. The second Sabbath 
in February I baptized one sister. Our Sunday school 
seems somewhat revived for a few weeks past, but is still 
small — about 20 scholars. Our female benevolent society 
have, within a few weeks, incorporated with it a sewing 
society, and, although the numbers are small, the prospects 
are flattering. Last month we took up a collection of six 
dollars in favor of the 111. Bapt. Education Socy. In addi- 
tion to my ordinary labours in this place and vicinity, for 
the last three months I have made three excursions of three 
days each about twelve or fourteen miles into the country 
and have preached two or three times each tour in the heart 
of an old anti-missionary church, and I trust the labour has 
not been lost. These labours, together with two sermons 
preached by Br. Parks from Payson, have resulted in re- 
viving the cause of temperance (just ready to die) in that 
region, and bringing together the few scattered sheep in the 
vicinity of a little town by the name of Benton, where thoy 
agree to constitute a branch of Payson church, or an inde- 
pendent church, next Wednesday, by the counsel of the 
Ouincy and Payson churches. In that town will be put in 
operation a Sabbath school as soon as the standard of the 
Cross shall be raised. The field is one of considerable in- 
terest and the Sabbath congregation at first will prob.ibly 
be one hundred. Indeed, there has not been less than that 
on either night in which I have preached in Benton. Al- 
though, by some means, the place has not the best name in 



40 Rev. I.uther Crawford had been corresponding secretary of the A. B. H. M. S. 
from 1837 to his death in 1839. His successor, Rev. Henjamin .M. Hill, was not 
elected until October, 1839, and did not enter upon his duties until March, 1840. — 
Bap. Home Missions in N. Am., 1832-1882. pp. 346, 355. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 99 

this part of the country, yet the assemblies have been order- 
ly and very attentive. Our meeting-house concerns are 
rather embarrassing and are in such condition that help 
must come from some quarter before next year at this time 
or the house and lot must go. If we could sell for cash a 
part of the lot, which can be spared, we could make things 
easy a few months, perhaps till fall. My plan is to ask for a 
dismission next May, so as to give the church opportunity to 
engage a minister in the eastern states who may raise a few 
hundred dollars for this object before removing to this place. 
I still think strongly of removing to Texas as a settler next 
fall, if the political condition of the country will admit. I 
have made known my intentions to some of the leading 
brethren, who say that in this case they shall expect me to 
preach with them till I leave, or till they can secure a pastor. 
They still pray for aid another year, and hope, by the bless- 
ing of God, that they may then be able to sustain their own 
pastor and give some to the general cause. 

In relation to Texas, I probably have as much informa- 
tion respecting the physical conditions as you, but as it re- 
lates to the Baptist cause, I know little except what I have 
learned through the medium of your Executive Committee, 
but that little speaks volumes. 

It would be gratifying to me to learn whether Br. Orr 
spent last winter in Texas and, if so, to have an epitome of 
his tour, as I suppose it is in your possession.'*^ If I go out 
next fall, I know I shall prefer on the whole to go on my 
own responsibility, independent of the Board. Yet in that 
case, I should like a recommendation from your Committee 
as to my Christian and ministerial character. 
I subscribe myself. Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Quincy, 111. 

41 As early as 1832, Texas was thought of as a field of work by the B. H. M. S. 
Some years later the "only Baptist church" in Texas applied for aid, and in 1838 
Rev. David Orr, of Arkansas, was appointed. He was unable to go, but in 1839 
Rev. James Huckins was appointed and went as exploring missionary and organized 
a church at Galveston. Seven or eight Baptist churches were reported in 1840. In 
that year the Society appealed for eight men to go to Texas. This may partly explain 
the author's interest in the field. — Bap. Home Missions in N. Am., 1832-1882, pp. 328, 
337. 



100 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

Quincy, 111., May 7th, 1839. 
Mr. John C. Murphy, 

Cor. Sec. American Baptist Home Missionary Society 
Dear Br.: 

It becomes my duty to report to the Executive Committee 
through you my services for the quarter ending the 4th instant. 
I can simply say that I have laboured as usual in this place, 
occasionally preached at Benton and Columbus Prairie dur- 
ing the week, and spent one Saturday and Sabbath at the 
above-named place where, on the 17th of April, we consti- 
tuted a church of eight members and baptized one candidate. 
The church in this place have dismissed three to unite with 
the church at Benton, and two who have removed their resi- 
dence, so that the church now numbers only about -K) or 41 
members. At present the state of religion is low in this 
place. I have asked a dismission from the pastoral care of 
this church and my request has been granted, but the trus- 
tees have invited me to labour with them till fall, perhaps 
Oct. or Nov., as we expect we shall not remove till that 
time, in the event we go to Texas. 

During the past year I have baptized 13. The church have 
raised about $30.00 for the various benevolent objects, in- 
cluding the Sabbath school, paid $36.00 rent for a place of 
worship and have been moving forward slowly and under 
embarrassing circumstances with their house. Have raised 
something less than $200 on subscription for my support, 
have made us frequent presents and have sustained a small 
Sabbath school. But we have experienced no special work 
of grace in the conversion of sinners, and I often fear that 
my own unfaithfulness may have stayed the showers of 
mercy from this people. 

The church are embarrassed with the meeting-house del)t. 
The house is so far completed that it would do for summer 
occupancy, but the contractor does not let us occupy it, al- 
though it is said that he is paid. ,Yet for the want of about 
$1,000 dollars over and above our abilitv. the church must 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 101 

be hardly pressed before another May, and I fear the prop- 
erty must be sacrificed. 

My plan when I resigned was, that the church should in- 
vite a man in some of the eastern states to become their 
pastor who should be put in possession of the facts and then 
raise from $500 to $1,000 for this object to bring on with 
him. But some of our brethren are perhaps quite as ven- 
turesome as prudent in this matter and are determined to 
secure a pastor, if possible, independent of this object. But 
for this debt, they could support a minister. Many are say- 
ing that if we had our house open, a good congregation 
might soon be collected. And why not, with a population of 
2500 souls and that number rapidly increasing? The church 
thankfully acknowledge the past favours of your Board and 
solicit your further aid for the ensuing year. Although I 
hope soon to occupy another field, yet I must say that in 
my knowledge of 111., I cannot put my finger upon any 
portion of the state more needing the labours of at least one 
man of somewhat commanding talents than the twenty miles 
back of and including this town. 

I shall make a draft on you in a few days for the sum of 
fifty dollars, being the sum due me for the six months end- 
ing the 4th instant. All of which is respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Ouincy. 
Mr. John C. Murphy, 

Cor. Sec. American Bapt. Home Mission Society, 
At the Mission Room, 118 Nassau Street, 
New York Citv. 



Iowa Territory, Davenport.^- Sept. 10. 1841. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. Bapt. H. ^Missionary Soc. 
Dear Br.: 

I take pen to make my c|uarterly report ending this day, 



42 Davenport, at the foot of the upper rapids of the Mississippi, was laid out 
in 1836, and in 1840 had 600 people. — Am. Cyc, V :704. Iowa had been erected into 
a separate territory in 1838, and was being rapidly settled through the later forties. 



102 CORRESPONDEX'CE OF THE 

as my comniision was not received till June the 10th. 1 have 
devoted my entire time to the work in this place and the 
county above since last Nov. 

In one particular I have not complied with your request, 
as you will see by the following report. A division having 
occurred in the church before my removal to this place and 
the means of support being too limited to warrant my devot- 
ing my entire labours to the place while there remained 
other portions of the Territory, probably equally important, 
entirely neglected, and other circumstances too numerous to 
be named in this have induced me to pursue the course I 
have, which is to the satisfaction of the brethren here. If, 
when you have taken a map of the Ter. and have traced out 
a region from twenty to fifty miles in width, extending from 
the mouth of the Iowa River up the Mississippi to the 
mouth of the Macoquetois (Moquoketa), and thence up that 
stream some ten miles above its forks,, without a single Bap- 
tist preacher but myself, where are now materials for the 
organization of six or seven small churches, your Board 
shall be dissatisfied with the course I have pursued, I will 
comply with any reasonable instructions which they may 
hereafter give. If my course has given satisfaction, I shall 
continue to comply with the general instructions, but prob- 
ably not spend more than half my time in this place. 

During the quarter I have preached somewhat more than 
half the time in this place, once each month at Parkhurst, 
at the head of the upper rapids, sixteen miles above this ; 
one Sabbath at Wyoming, on this river, 25 miles below 
this, and have visited Bloomington twice, spending one Sab- 
bath there. This place is at the most commanding point 
commercially in the Territory, and I hope a church will be 
constituted in a few months. 

I have spent one Sabbath at the Forks of the JNIacoquetois 
[ Moquoketa] . in Jackson Co., and found about 20 Baptists. 
There also they took some incipient measures for the con- 
stitution of a church. In this place is a heavy settlement 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 103 

and it seems destined to be an important point, as the coun- 
try is well timbered, has a fine soil, is contiguous to the 
mining region^^ and is so situated that from Dubuque to 
Bloomington, a distance of 150 miles by water, no point of 
the Mississippi is more than 50 miles distant. 

I have also preached one Sabbath, and occasionally in the 
week, 14 miles N. W. from this. 

You will see then that I statedly supply Davenport and 
Parkhurst. The church at Parkhurst, at the head of the up- 
per rapids, is called the Bath Baptist Church. I reside in 
Davenport, Scott County, I. T. ; postoffice in the place. 
This report is for the first quarter of my appointment. I 
have devoted my entire time to the work of the ministry 
except for providing ordinary food and raiment for my 
family. 

During the quarter I have preached 27 sermons, delivered 
two temperance addresses and . five addresses on other sub- 
jects, attended six church conference meetings, one church 
meeting for business, two conference meetings on the sub- 
ject of preparing for church organizations at Bloomington 
and the Forks of Macoquetois, attended two monthly con- 
certs, and travelled 477 miles to and from appointments. 
.... Received four by letter into the churches. I have 
made 49 religious visits in almost as many families. Month- 
ly concert is attended only at Davenport. I have visited one 
school. I have obtained signatures to the temperance pledge 
and been instrumental in the constitution of two temperance 
societies. I have received nothing for the benevolent so- 
cieties, but $11 towards my support. There are two Sunday 
schools connected with the congregations of my charge. 12 
teachers and about 60 scholars; both libraries contain al)out 
100 volumes. 

We have a small women's sewing society for the purpose 
of promoting the S. school interests. 

43 These mines were for lead and iron. (See letter of March 10, 1842.) 



]€4 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

I propose visiting" Bloomington and vicinity and The 
Forks of the Macoquetois as often as circumstances will ad- 
mit ; and perhaps I shall visit Lynn Co. before the year 
terminates. I also contemplate attending the 111. State Con- 
vention next month. 

By the blessing of our heavenly Father my health and 
that of my family have been tolerably good during the whole 
of the sickly season. But my lungs are feeble and I do 
not think the climate agrees with them so well as it has 
further south, although it is more like a New England cli- 
mate. 

Our prairies are large, the population sparse, except in the 
river tow^ns and in the small groves, but the field is truly in- 
viting to a healthy, self-denying pioneer. 

All of which is respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 

Missionary. 

N. B. — Everything is new and fluctuating, still, amid all 
the discouragements, our congregations are good and atten- 
tive, for a new country, and the people are generally willing 
to contribute to the support of the gospel in the products 
of the earth. I shall probably receive about $150 in produce 
from the people for this year's services. 

Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. Bapt. Home Miss. S jc, 
No. 9 Spruce Street, 
New York. 



Iowa Ter., Davenport, Scott Co., Dec. 10, 1841. 
Mr. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. S. 

Dear Br.: 

I now take my pen to report a summary of my labours 
during the last quarter ending this day. The present field of 
labour is somewhat extensive. I at present preach two Sab- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 105 

baths in a month at this place, and, as often as circumstances 
will admit, at Hickory Grove, fifteen miles N. W. from this, 
where a part of the members of the church live, and one 
Sabbath each month to the church at the head of the Upper 
Rapids, 15 miles above this in Scott Co. I extend my la- 
bours from the mouth of the Wabepsipineca [Wapsipinicon] 
River to Davenport. I have made arrangements, since my 
last report, to preach once each month in Bloomington, 30 
miles below this on the Missisippi and the seat of justice for 
Muscatine County. I also preach monthly on a week day 
at Salem, a small town 8 miles above Bloomington, on the 
river. 

I constituted a church of six members at Bloomington on 
the 31st of Oct., and the prospects are flattering that some 
seven or eight will soon unite by letter. This little band 
have established a weekly prayer meeting" and talk of pay- 
ing me one hundred dollars for one fourth of my time the 
ensuing" year. In this place our congregations are large for 
a new place. 

The churches are not yet associated in this part of the 
territory, but probably will be next spring. I still reside at 
Davenport. 

I have probably laboured about ten weeks directly for the 
Home Missionary Society and spent as little time as prac- 
ticable in providing for my family. 

During the quarter I have preached 28 sermons, delivered 
9 addresses, attended 3 prayer meetings, 5 covenant meetings, 
one council for the constitution of the church at Blooming- 
ton, travelled 750 miles, attended the Illinois State Conven- 
tion and, on my return, attended a protracted meeting with 
the Rock Spring church, 6 miles back from Burlington. 
There were eight hopeful cases of conversion and six were 
examined for baptism. Father Ogle, the aged pastor, Br. 
Joseph Lemon and Br. Van Brunt, with myself, were the la- 
bourers. Baptism was deferred two weeks. 



106 CORRESPOXDEN'CE OF THE 

We have received one by letter into the church in Daven- 
port and one at Bloomington during the quarter. I have 
visited 56 famiHes, including the sick, during the quarter. 
The monthly concert is observed only by the church at Dav- 
enport, and then only when I am in the place. 

I have visited but one school this quarter. The serious dif- 
ficulty which occurred in the church in this place before our 
removal here is yet unsettled. We are hoping to dispose of 
it in two or three months. Prospects are rather unpromis- 
ing till the matter is finally adjusted. It is truly painful to 
the minister to see all his influence paralyzed in a point of 
so much promise as this, by the waywardness (not to say 
stubbornness) of a few brethren lovely in other respects. 
We very much need a man at the forks of the Macoquetois 
[^foquoketa], at which point your old friend Br. Doolittle 
is situated. I have no doubt the brethren there would give 
a man, with a small family, half a support for half his ser- 
vices and he would find a good field for labour the remaining 
half. It is possible I may think it best to remove to Bloom- 
ington in the spring, as the friends there express a desire that 
I do so. 

All of which is respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Davenport and vicinity. 

N. B. — During the summer there has been a S. school at 
Parkhurst, at the head of the Upper Rapids. We have one 
in Davenport connected with the Baptist church, and there 
is one in Bloomington in which the Baptist members and 
supporters bear an important part. 

Yours, E. FISHER. 
Indorsed : 

Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Corresponding Secretary A. B. H. M. S., 
Office of the American Baptist 
Home Mission Society, 
New York City. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 107 

Iowa Territory, Muscatine County, Bloomington ■^^ [Mus- 
catine], March 10th, 1842. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Socy. 
Respected Br. : 

The time has arrived for me to make my report for the 
third quarter ending this day. My engagement with the 
church in Davenport having expired, and, having received a 
unanimous call from the feeble church which I constituted 
in this place last Oct., I have judged it duty to comply with 
the request, and we moved the present week. We look upon 
this as a more important point than our former place of 
residence, and present prospects are more flattering. It is 
due however to the church at Davenport to say that their 
protracted difficulties seem to be drawing to a close and we 
hope the issue will be a happy one. They are making an 
effort to build a house the coming season ; and a part of the 
church think their best policy is to build and after that look 
out a pastor, but a majority of the members and supporters 
do not think this is the best policy. I shall visit them occa^ 
sionally during the summer. On the whole, Davenport and 
Rock Island, formerly Stephenson, 111., directly opposite, are 
too important points to be neglected and there never was a 
more favorable time for Baptists to work in those places, if 
they could harmonize among themselves. 

I preach two Sabbaths each month in Bloomington, one in 
Parkhurst, at the head of the upper rapids, occasionally in 
Davenport and vicinity, have once visited the Forks of the 
Macoquetois in Jackson County, and once De Witt, the 
county seat of Clinton County. Bloomington will be my 
post office address hereafter. The Forks of the Macoquetois 
needs a man of good, practical talents who can for a few- 
years undergo the privations of a new county. He will find 
it a most inviting field. This region of country is properly 



44 Bloomington began as a trading post in 1833. It was laid out in 1836, and 
incorporated in 1839. It was chartered as a city in 1851 under the name of Musca- 
tine, which it now bears. — Ency. Rrit., 11th ed. XIX :44. 



108 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

called the Genesee of Iowa, while it has the additional 
advantage of being located on the border of a rich lead and 
iron region. Twenty efBcient members could be organized 
into a church at this time. 

I have devoted all my time, with the exception of a very 
few days, to my professional duties. 1 have preached thirty- 
two sermons, delivered eleven addresses on temperance and 
Sabbath schools, attended eight covenant and church meet- 
ings and travelled in the performance of my professional du- 
ties five hundred and seventy miles. 

We have had more than usual attention to the subject of 
religion in Parkhurst and vicinity, and there have been three 
cases of hopeful conversion, but I have baptized none. W^e 
have received two to the Bloomington church by letter, one 
to the church at Parkhurst and two to the Davenport church ; 
making in all five. I have visited, including the sick, 40 
families, and perhaps as many individuals. At the meetings 
which I have addressed, we have received 69 names to the 
total abstinence pledge. I have assisted in organizing the 
Scott County Temperance Society. The churches at Bloom- 
ington and Parkhurst maintain a weekly prayer meet rg. but 
the monthly concert is not at this time sustained in any of 
the churches. There have been but two Sabbath schools in 
operation the past quarter among the people where I labour, 
and one of those, the one at Davenport, is now suspended. I 
have received during the last quarter about sixty-six dollars 
towards my support. The church and friends in this pla'V 
will probably pay me about one hundred and fifty dollars for 
half of the time the coming year. The remaining part of 
the time I shall labour in new and destitute portions of this 
and adjacent counties where but little can be expected. I 
shall therefore have to look to the Board of the Baptist 
Home Missionary Society for aid another year or limit the 
field of my labours, and this seems almost impossible while 
the cry is on every hand. "We have a few Baptists in our 
settlements and you will have a congregation, if you will 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 109 

come and visit us, but we have had no preaching of tlie right 
sort since we crossed the Mississippi." These cries come 
from important places where are rising villages. I have 
paid more than $100 the past year out of my own funds to 
sustain my family, and I wish I could continue to make that 
yearly sacrifice for the cause of our Blessed Redeemer, but 
this cannot long be. These feeble churches are willing to 
contribute liberally, for their ability, to sustain the gospel, 
and, if fostered a little now, will soon aid in carrying the 
gospel beyond them. 

By the blessing of God our health has been tolerably good 
during the past three quarters. 

All of which is respectfully submitted. 

EZRA FISHER. 



Bloomington [Muscatine], Muscatine Co., Iowa Territory, 

May 9th, 1842."^ 
To the American Baptist Home Mission Society. 
Dear Brethren : 

On Sabbath last, after preaching on the 8th inst., the first 
regular Baptist church of Bloomington was called to order, 
and on motion, the clerk of the church was instructed to pre- 
pare a letter setting forth their wants and desires and asking 
the Board of the Home Mission Society to render us some 
assistance in sustaining the preaching of the gospel of Christ 
in this interesting field of labour. In compliance with the 
instruction of the Board, I shall lay before you the necessary 
information, together with the resolution unanimously adopt- 
ed by the church, which is as follows: 

Resolved that, in the estimation of this church, there is in 
our beloved brother, Elder Ezra Fisher, such talent, prud- 
ence and deep interest exhibited in the cause of Christ as 
insures our entire confidence and will result, under divine 
providence, in greatly advancing the cause of our Redeemer, 
and, that in order to sustain and continue his usefulness in 
Bloomington and vicinity, we do respectfully solicit the 



no CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Board of Home Missions of the City of New York to render 
us such assistance as they deem wise and in their power 
and as will enable us to make up the deficiency requisite to 
his support. 

The location of Bloomington, situated on the Mississippi 
River, is, no doubt, destined to become a large and import- 
ant place. It is acknowledged to have many advantages in 
point of commerce over most of the towns of the Territory, 
it being the only landing for Iowa City*^ and a large section 
of fertile country now rapidly improving and increasing in 
population. Our town now numbers between eight and nine 
hundred and is rapidly increasing. The people are generally 
emigrants of the highest intelligence and refinement from the 
eastern states. Perhaps we cannot give you a better demon- 
stration of this fact than to inform you that already seven 
different churches in this yet limited population have lifted 
up their standards and each pays from two to three hundred 
dollars per year to sustain preaching twice a month, and that 
some are now erecting places of worship. 

The Baptist church is composed at present 6i 10 members ; 
has only been in existence about six months. Three more 
are waiting with letters to join at the next regular meeting, 
making in all 13, and, in addition to these, there are about 20 
more professing Baptists in the town and vicinity wdio mani- 
fest a disposition to be of our number as soon as circum- 
stances will permit. 

Judging from the number, about two hundred, which at- 
tend at our place of worship, there is as large a number at- 
tached to our church as any other. This may however be 
owing to the fact of our being blessed with a very devoted 
and acceptable pastor. We have rented for the present a 
large public lecture room for meetings, and have agreed to 
pay our pastor. Rev. Ezra Fisher, who is now located in the 
town, $200 per year to preach to us twice each month. He 



45 Iowa City was the capital of Iowa from 1839 to 1857 — Ency. Brit.. 11th ed., 
XIV:736. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. Ill 

may possibly (but barely possible) make up for the balance 
of the time he has in the adjoining country another $100 
more. He is about 42 years of age, has a wife and three chil- 
dren dependent on him for support and it will require much 
prudence for him to be sustained on $450 per year, so that 
the least aid required will be $100. Mr. Fisher is a regularly 
ordained minister of the Baptist denomination and completed 
his theological studies at Newton, Mass. It is desirable 
that his salary should commence on receipt of this commu- 
nication. 

My limits of brevity, already transcended, will not admit 
of my enlarging as to the utility and importance of sustain- 
ing Baptist influence in this section of the country ; suffice 
it to say, though there is much to make us glad, yet there 
is much moral death in our midst and many valuable souls 
are perishing for lack of knowledge. 

Dear brethren, may the great Head of the church direct 
you in wisdom and bless both you and us in our feeble efforts 
to advance the cause of our blessed Redeemer, is our sincere 
prayer. 

Done by order and in behalf of the First Baptist Church 
of Bloomington, the 8th day of May, 1842. 

A. L. BEATTY, Ch. Clk. 



Iowa City, June 5th, "42. 
Dear Bro. Hill.: 

This is to inform you that a General Ass. has been form- 
ed in this Territory auxiliary to the Am. Bap. Home Society 
and, as the Sec. of the Executive Board is absent, it devolves 
upon me to say to you that we have taken up the case of 
Eld. Fisher of Bloomington and have deemed it expedient to 
request of you one hundred dollars to aid the Bloomington 
church in his support. 

Respectfully yours, 

W. B. MOREY, 
Chairman of the Ex. Board. 
Bloomington, June 8th, 1842. 



112 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

Dear Br. Hill: 

I just take my pen to say that the probability is that I shall 
not receive more than forty or fifty dollars the ensuing year 
for my services in the Territory, beyond what I receive in 
this place, yet, in view of the wants of the Valley. I do not 
ask the Board to give me more than $100 the ensuing year. 
I shall forward my report in a few days. 

EZRA FISHER. 



Iowa Territory, Bloomington [Muscatine], June 10, 1842. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Socy. 
Dear Br.: 

By the providence of our Lord, I am called upon to make 
my last quarterly report of my labours in the service of the 
Home Mission Society. My labours during the past quarter 
have been devoted to Bloomington, Muscatine County, half 
the time, and to Parkhurst, Scott County, one-fourth of the 
time, with occasional visits to Davenport, Scott Co., Hickory 
Grove, Scott Co., Salem, ten miles above Bloomington, Mus- 
catine Co., and Rochester, Cedar Co., on Cedar River, 20 
miles from this place. I spent one week in Iowa City and 
on my way to and from the place, where I assisted in the or- 
ganization of a General Association for the Territory, auxil- 
iary to the A. B. H. M. Socy. A truly Christian spirit per- 
vaded all the meetings. 

I have preached thirty sermons, delivered eight addresses, 
attended eleven weekly prayer meetings, five church cove- 
nant metings, one church meeting for business in Daven- 
port, have ridden 372 miles to appointments and have de- 
voted all my time to the ministry, except some five or six 
days. 

I cannot report one case of hopeful conversions, although 
there appears rather an increase of attention to the subject 
of religion in this place and through this part of the Terri- 
tory. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 113 

I have baptized none; have received five i^y letter to the 
church in this place. I have made seventy-two religious 
visits to families and individuals. We have not yet establish- 
ed the monthly concert in this place, but intend to soon. I 
have visited but one school during the quarter. I have re- 
ceived no signatures to the temperance pledge, but have at- 
tended four meetings and participated in the deliberations 
and committees for the furtherance of that cause, which is 
on the advance. . . . 

On the subject of Missions, Bible Tracts and Education, 
the people cherish correct views, but as yet, having every- 
thing to do and just getting organized and the churches be- 
ing but little handfuls and poor, we have not yet made a pub- 
lic call, but soon calculate to introduce the subject of taking 
up quarterly collections, at which time the claims of some 
one of the great benevolent enterprises shall be presented 
to the public mind. 

I have received about $47 toward my support the past quar- 
ter. Have received nothing from auxiliary societies. We 
have but one Sunday school connected with my congrega- 
tions, and that a union school in this place. We have no 
Bible class, but contemplate making an effort soon for that 
object. 

Our people contemplate making an eft'ort to erect a house 
of worship the ensuing summer and fall, but are altogether 
unable without the liberal aid of the citizens and friends. . . . 
The church at Davenport are nearly through their series of 
difficulties and are about building a house ; have a good lot 
donated. We are pleased with Br. Brown, and hope the door 
may be effectually opened for him to preach at least half the 
time at Davenport. He will preach there on the fourth Sab. 
of the present month. Lynn Co. is an interesting field, as 
well as Cedar, but is quite remote from the field of any Bap- 
tist preacher. There are about 6.000 souls in these two coun- 
ties. 



114 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

If the Board reappoint me to this place and vicinity, I 
shall probably spend a fourth of my time in Cedar County, 
and occasionally extend my labours down the river towards 
the mouth of the Iowa River between that and the Mississip- 
pi till we have more labourers enter the field. 

On the reception of this, you will please forward me a 
draft for twenty-five dollars on your Treasurer, it being the 
sum due me for the last quarter of the present year as re- 
ported in this. 

Yours in the service of our divine Master, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Bloomington. 

N. B. — -I did not understand your change in making drafts 
when I made my last till it was beyond my reach. I con- 
sequently deferred answering yours, as it would make you an 
additional charge in postage. I shall proceed to labour as 
though in the service of the Board till I hear from you. For 
the last three months I think I have had an increasing de- 
sire to make the glory of God and the salvation of men the 
ruling passion of my soul and have felt myself deeply hum- 
bled at the thought that I have been instrumental of so little 
good the past year and especially that so few souls have been 
converted in Iowa Territory. I trust that some of your mis- 
sionaries have resolved that the prayer of Habbakuk shall be 
ours till the Lord revive his work with us. 

Yours, E. F. 



Bloomington [Muscatine], September 27, 1842. 
To the Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br. Hill: 
I take my pen, neglected by reason of my absence on the 
15th and since by the sickness of my family, to make my re- 
port for the quarter ending the 15th of the present month. 

Bloomington and Salem, Muscatine County, are the prin- 
cipal places of my Sabbath labour. I have visited Rochester, 
Cedar County, spent a Sabbath at Moscow, Cedar Co., twice, 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 115 

and have visited Parkhurst, Scott County, speaking one Sab- 
bath with the church at that place called Bath Church. The 
church in Bloomington is the only one in this county or 
Cedar. 

This is my first quarter's report under the commission, 
dated June 15th, which was duly received. I have laboured 
twelve weeks the past quarter in my field. Have preached 
28 sermons, attended six covenant meetings and two other 
church_ meetings, ten prayer meetings, two temperance meet- 
ings,"*^ a temperance celebration on the 4th of July, two 
funerals, and ten other meetings, assisted in organizing a 
county temperance society and travelled 406 miles. There 
has been one hopeful conversion in my congregation. I have 
received into Bloomington church four interesting members 
by baptism and seven by letter. I have made one hundred 
and three pastoral visits. We have commenced the monthly 
concert in Bloomington the present month, hoping to be able 
to sustain them. I have visited but one common school the 
past quarter ; have obtained no signatures to the temperance 
pledge. No young man within my field preparing for the 
ministry. No churches constituted or minister ordained. We 
have received nothing the past quarter for Missionary, Bible 
Publication or Education Societies, but we have resolved to 
take up a collection on the 2d Sab. of Oct. for foreign mis- 
sions. Have received $30 in provisions, and, at the organiza- 
tion of the association in Davenport on the 18th. a collection 
of six dollars was taken up in aid of the Home Mission 
cause, which I received and for convenience report it in this 
quarter, although received since the 15th. 

I have received nothing else from auxiliary societies. No 
Bible class, but we have made some efforts for one. Three 
Sunday schools connected with my field of labour, but only 
one will continue in the winter. About 200 volumes, 14 
teachers, 90 scholars, 8 teachers connected with Baptist fami- 



46 Rev. Jonathan Going, the first corresponding secretary of the B. H. M. S., 
was a pronounced temperance advocate, so, from the first, missionaries of the So- 
ciety were active in temperance work. — Bap. Home Missions in N. Am., 1832-1882, 
p. 531. 



116 CORRSPOXDEXCE OF THE 

lies, 30 scholars. Not yet commenced a house of worship, 
but have had three meetings on the subject. We fear that 
another year will not find the work begun. We organized 
an association, of seven churches north of the Iowa River, 
auxiliary to the General Association of Iowa Territory, and, 
as soon as our minutes are struck olT, I will forward you a 
copy. Our little church has increased from five to 23 since the 
fourth Sabbath in October last. 

The cause is generally advancing in all this region, al- 
though we have been blessed with no general revival. I feel 
more and more my dependence on God to bless, or all is un- 
availing in our labours. 

Please forward me a draft for nineteen dollars, the sum 
due me for the last quarter's services, now reported, after 
deducting the six dollars received from the collection taken at 
the Davenport Association before named. 
I remain, 

Your brother and fellow laborer in the vineyard of 
our blessed Lord, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Missionary at Bloomington, I. T. 



Iowa Ter., Bloomington [Muscatine], Dec. 21, 1842. 
Dear Br. Hill.: 

I sit down to make a report of my labours for the quarter 
ending the fifteenth of the present month. Were it not for 
the fact that the providences of God are beyond our control, 
I should have occasion to confess with shame that I have 
been squandering our Master's time. But afflictions in my 
family and in the families of our little church in Blooming- 
ton have prevented my doing much the past quarter. Suffice 
it to say that since the 12th of last Aug., till within the last 
week, we have not had a day but we have had at least one in 
the family confined to the bed and, at this time, a little 
daughter of 3i/^ years requires the attention of one all the 
time, having had a finger mashed in the door in Aug. and 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 117 

inflammation ensuing in Sept. ; in Oct. she lost the first 
joint by mortification and in Nov. it again inflamed and she 
lost the second joint and vas brought almost to the grave 
with that and the whooping-cough. On Oct. 27th we lost an 
infant of two months with the whooping-cough. In addition 
to this, several of our members' families were so sick that 
little could be done by way of promoting the general ob- 
jects of the Redeemer's kingdom, and, besides this, I com- 
menced building a small house last June and hoped to be 
able to occupy it in the fall without performing any labour 
of consequence on it myself, but my help sickened and threw 
us so late that I have been obliged to spend some time in la- 
bour to enable us to stop our rent, which was not till the 14th 
of the present month. If I had been able to raise money to 
meet our rent, I should not have given my hands to labour, 
but, after consulting the brethren and commending my case 
to our heavenly Father, I have done what I have, and I sup- 
pose your Board and our patrons would justify me, if you 
felt all the privations of a new country which we are feeling 
in Iowa at this time. But, by the grace of God, we hope to 
be disincumbered for the future. Bloomington and Salem in 
Muscatine County and Parkhurst, Scott County, comprise my 
field of labour for the past quarter. I statedly supply the 
two former places, but there is no church in Salem, only a 
few members ununited with any church. 

I have performed the amount of three or four weeks' la- 
bor about my house ; the rest of the time, except for sickness, 
has been devoted to the work. 

Preached 22 sermons. I know of no cases of hopeful con- 
version within my field. Baptized none, attended two con- 
ference and eight prayer meetings; travelled 212 miles; have 
received none by letter the past quarter. Monthly concert 
has been observed at Bloomington, but sickness has com- 
pelled us to discontinue it ; expect to revive it next month. 
.... Sickness prevented organizing a church in Marion, 
Lynn Co. Nothing done for the benevolent objects, save $6 



118 CORRESPOXDEN'CE OF THE 

collected for the cause of home missions at the organization 
of the Davenport Association reported last quarter. Receiv^- 
ed $50 of my salary. No Bible class and at present but one 
Sunday school ; 30 scholars, 7 teachers, three teachers and 
about 10 children among Baptist families, 150 volumes in the 
library. No meeting-house commenced. If, under the cir- 
cumstances, your Board can allow me twenty-five dollars for 
the past quarter's services, you will please forward me the 
draft to that amount and it will relieve me from the debts 
unavoidably contracted to render my family even comfort- 
able, and it will be gratefully received. Your Board may 
rest assured that it is my daily prayer that I may be enabled 
to devote my whole time and talents to the gospel ministry, 
and this to me is more than when the wine and the oil in- 
crease. 

I subscribe myself yours in the love of the gospel, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Bloomington [Muscatine], Iowa Ter., Jan. 7. 1843. 
Dear Br. Hill.: 



The Roman Catholics . . . are about erecting large houses 
of worship in Burlington, Bloomington, Davenport and Iowa 
City, while Dubuque is the residence of the Bishop ;'*'' each 
of the above-named places has a Roman priest. 

We have in Bloomington an Episcopal priest, a Presby- 
terian minister, and a large Methodist class, with preach- 
ing half the time, and a congregation of Universalists with 
preaching once a month. We greatly need Baptist preaching 
in this place once each Sabbath at least, but as yet we have 
no place of worship. All our members are poor. Unless 
we can get up a small house the ensuing summer, to hu- 
man appearance, we must fall in the rear. God knows, and 
will deliver his alTlicted ones. With three or four hundred 
dollars beyond our abilities, we might get up a neat little 



47 The first Catholic church building in Iowa was built at Dubuque in 1836. 
The first Bishop of Dubuque was consecrated in 1837. The city was made the seat 
of an archbishop in 1893. — Catholic Encyclopaedia, V'III:95. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 119 

house. Thankless as the business may be, must we fail for 
the want of that sum? I have no desire to visit the East on 
a message like this, but I do desire a house for the worship 
of God, our Saviour, in B., where His ordinances and doc- 
trines may be maintained in their original simplicity and 
purity. 

Yours, 

E. FISHER. 



Iowa Territory, Bloomington [Muscatine], March 15, 1843. 
Corresponding Secretary of the A. B. H. M. Soc, N. Y. 

Dear Br. : 
It becomes my duty to make a report of my labors for the 
third quarter ending this day, the year commencing June 15, 
1842. I have devoted all the time to the ministry as far as 
my health and the extremely severe winter would admit. I 
have failed entirely of reaching one appointment on the Sab- 
bath by reason of a severe storm, the thermometer ranging 
about 12 degrees below zero, and the appointment being in 
an open prairie 12 miles distant. My lungs have been sore 
most of the time during the last quarter so that I have sel- 
dom preached more than once on the Sabbath.-*^ I have 
preached 17 sermons; no addresses; attended 4 covenant meet- 
ings; 11 weekly prayer meetings; traveled 246 miles. No 
hopeful conversions ; cause of religion and temperance low 
in B. ; yet our church enjoys a devotional frame of mind. . . . 
We have received 5 by letter and 2 to be under our watch- 
care. Have made more than 50 pastoral visits. Monthly con- 
cert is attended at but one place in B. I have visited and ad- 
dressed three common schools. Obtained but five or six signa- 
tures to the temperance pledge. . . . We have one licentiate 
preacher in our church, a good deacon and a valuable brother. 
.... Such is the extremely embarrassing circumstance of oui 
feeble church that as yet we have done nothing for either ot 
the benevolent institutions, although there is a willingness 



48 It will be recalled that the author's death was caused by pneumonia. Occa- 
sional references to sore lungs show a tendency in that direction. 



120 CORRESPONDEXCE OF THE 

and a promise to soon. No auxiliary society has aided me the 
past quarter. No Bible class; one S. school of 7 teachers, 4 
Baptist, and about 45 scholars, 8 of whom are Baptists. No 
effort to build a house. I have received about $70 for my sup- 
port, mostly in produce. 

The Church has invited me to continue with them the 
present calendar year. . . . and made an effort to raise 
$200 in produce, but will not be able to raise more than 
about $100, should I stay. 

In view of the irritable state of my lungs every winter 
and of the soft and salubrious climate of Oregon Ter. and 
the amount of emigration annually passing over the Rocky 
Mountains, we are contemplating removing to the said 
Territory next year, if Providence smiles and we can raise 
the means."*^ As we have been almost eleven years in this 
Valley, we wish to visit our friends in New York, Vermont 
and Massachusetts before we make this removal. Our rea- 
sons are : First, the benefit of my lungs and health of my 
family. Second, it will probably be more dififiicult to per- 
suade men to go to Oregon than to Iowa, especially at first, 
while the demands will be greater in three years. We hear 
of companies forming in various portions of our country 
to go out the present year and numbers of them are Bap- 
tists. Third, I have been a pioneer for more than ten years 
and have no desire ever to settle over a church in the 
old states, while the field is the world in the new and rising 
portions of our country. We shall probably leave this place 
as soon as the first of June for New York, and I wish, by 
the grace of God. to devote as much of my time to the ser- 
vice of the Messiah's Kingdom as I can during my journey 
with my family. . . . Our Board will meet in this place 



49 The first important immigration to Oregon was in 1842 wlien about one 
hundred accompanied Elijah White, newly appointed Indian agent of the United 
States, on his return to Oregon. This was merely the advance guard of an immi- 
gration of about a thousand in 1843. The immigrants of this year came largely 
from Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. The interest of 
Ezra Fisher in Oregon probably dates from the glowing rei>orts of the country 
which were circulating all through the west in the winter of 1842-4. — See Bancroft, 
Hist, of Oregon, Vol. I, passim. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 121 

next week, and I shall present my views to them for consid- 
eration and counsel. 

Please send me a draft of twenty-five dollars as soon as 
convenient, as I am owing for rents which were due last 
November and we cannot raise a dollar in money on my last 
year's subscription. 

All which is submitted. 

Yours in the bonds of the gospel, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Granville, Putnam County, Illinois, June 1st, 18^3. 
To the Corresponding Secretary of the American Baptist 

Home Mission Society: 
Dear Br. Hill: 

I take my pen to make a report of my services in Bloom- 
ington, Iowa, and vicinity, for the part of the quarter com- 
mencing March 15th and ending May the 23d. 

According to my best calculation I have laboured eight 
weeks in the service of the Society and the church at Bloom- 
ington and vicinity. 

I have preached 15 sermons, delivered one address on the 
subject of Bible instruction . . . Traveled one hundred 
and five miles to and from appointments. . . .Have visit- 
ed and assisted in the revival in Davenport two days. 
Our church has been peculiarly oppressed with pecuniary 
embarrassments and has paid nothing for any of the benevo- 
lent objects, but has paid about thirty dollars for my salary. 
I have received nothing from auxiliary societies. 
You will please forward me a draft for fifteen dollars to 
Clinton Post Oflfice, Oneida Co., New York, in the care of 
Timothy Taft, and I shall receive it on my arrival. 

I feel convinced that I have not rendered the amount of 
profitable service directly to the cause of Bloomington that 
I should, had not the subject of the Oregon enterprise agi- 
tated my mind and called forth my anxious thoughts, and I 
trust humble prayers. As it relates to that subject, I have 



122 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

endeavored to look at the privations and difficulties as well 
as to the beauties of nature,^" and I can say with some de- 
gree of confidence that I desire to set aside all considera- 
tions but the will of God and the well being of man in this 
and all my undertakings. In considering the path of duty 
I see no field of labor which I can contemplate with so much 
satisfaction, or concerning which I have so little doubt of 
duty as an attempt to lay the foundation for an interest in 
Oregon. Our country-men will go, and they will go, too, 
without the Bible and the Sabbath, unless these are carried 
by the good and self-denying. Hundreds are crossing the 
mountains this year.^^ Our Government is sending out a 
scientific corps^^ of 50 mounted men to explore the country 
and, if possible, to return as soon as the early part of the 
next session of Congress. I am also informed that an Eng- 
lish nobleman is hiring men and purchasing wagons and 
mules in St. Louis for an exploring expedition to that coun- 
try, ostensibly a private expedition. . . . 

We shall probably be at Buffalo as soon as the ninth of 
July, perhaps the second. May God direct. 

I subscribe myself your unworthy brother in Christ, 

EZRA FISHER. Missionary. 

N. B. — The church in Bloomington will apply to the Gen- 
eral Association to render them some temporary aid, but 
have not determined as yet to ask for assistance from your 
Board. Some two or three families will probably go with 
me to Oregon, if I am preserved and am permitted to go. 



50 This well reflects the information concerning Oregon which was current in 
the west at the time this was written. No large immigration had yet gotten into 
Oregon with wagons, and the journey was an extremely arduous and dangerous one 
of about six months. On the other hand, reports circulated by travelers and mis- 
sionaries from the country, and by the debates in Congress of the past few win- 
ters, pictured Oregon as an earthly paradise. — Bancroft, Hist, of Oregon, Vol. I, 
passim. 

51 The exact number of the immigration of 1843 is uncertain. Tt is variously 
estimated from 500 to 1000. — Bancroft, Hist, of Oregon, 1 : 395 ft. 

52 The United States Government expedition was that headed by J. C. Fremont. 
It traveled just behind the immigrants as far as Soda Springs on the Bear River, 
and after a detour of the Great Salt Lake, arrived at The Dalles, Oregon, in No- 
vember. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. I: 420; C. A. Snowden, Hist, of Wash. II: 247. 
The English nobleman was Sir William Stewart, who was hunting in the Rocky 
Mountains with William Sublette, Overton Johnson and Wm. H. Winter of the 
immigration of 1843. Route across the Rocky Mountains, etc., reprinted in the 
Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, VII: 62 fif. ; the reference is on page 68. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 123 

Syracuse, N. Y., Oct. 18th, 1843. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. S. 
Beloved Br. : 

It is with emotions of gratitude to our divine Master for 
the great kindness you have manifested to me in all your 
correspondence, and especially since our personal acquaint- 
ance, that I address you at this time. . . . May Heaven 
reward you, if indeed I am a disciple of Christ. I was driv- 
en to fear that the amount for my salary in Oregon would 
require my stay in this state so long that I should be driven 
to cross the wide prairies of the West with my young family 
in the dead of winter or fail of being ready to leave with 
the caravan in the spring. I also expected to be compelled 
to leave the ministry in part to teach through the interven- 
ing time, but, by your suggestion, cheerfully take this op- 
portunity to request the Board through you to appoint me 
as one of their missionaries for the term of six months in 
Iowa, as I desire to devote that amount of time to preach- 
ing the gospel in that Ter. I shall probably find an import- 
ant field of labor on the Mississippi River. I think it will re- 
quire one hundred and fifty dollars to barely sustain my 
family six months, but think, with fifty dollars from your 
Board, I can live from the people. I have a wife and four 
children. 53 Should your Board think fit to make the ap- 
pointment, you will please forward it to Br. Charles E. 
Brown, Davenport, Cor. Sec. of Iowa Bapt. Gen. Associa- 
tion. 

I did not find the instructions to applicants for appoint- 
ment, as your annual report is packed up in my boxes. I 
thought perhaps your Board would dispense with all the 
formality ordinarily requisite, as I intend going directly to 
Davenport and acting in concert with the Board of the Iowa 
Baptist General Association, located in that place. 

Yours in grateful remembrance, 
EZRA FISHER. 

53 The four children were Lucy Jane Gray (Latourette), Timothy Taft, Ann 
Eliza (Latourette) and Sarah Josephine (Henderson). 



124 CORRESPOXDEXXE OF THE 

Davenport, Scott Co.. Iowa Ter., Jan. 22, 1844. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

We arrived in this place on the 15th of December, and 
have delayed writing on account of the unfavorable reports 
respecting the road to Oregon, hoping to be able before this 
to learn something more satisfactory on the subject. But 
as yet we are involved in uncertainty. Five men from the 
emigrants' company returned, after they had proceeded as 
far as Fort Hall, who stated that the company were obliged 
to leave all their wagons and take the pack horses through 
the mountains a distance of 600 miles. 5"* We have learned 
too by ten of Lieut. Fremont's men who returned that the 
company of emigrants were reduced to the necessity of eat- 
ing horse flesh for meat. 

We hope to learn more definitely and positively when 
Lieut. Fremont returns, which will probably be in two or 
three weeks. Should we learn that the distance from Fort 
Hall to the mouth of the Willamette is impassable by 
wagons, we feel that it will be more than our young family 
can encounter to take pack horses and provisions and neces- 
sary cooking utensils and clothing and bedding, and thus ar- 
rayed attempt to urge ovir way through the defiles of the 
mountains. We learn that a very large company from Piatt 
County, Missouri, ^^ are making arrangements to emigrate 
next spring for Oregon, some from this Territory and some 
from 111. A Mr. Flint from ^^lissouri writes that probably 
the emigrating camp will consist of 3000 men. We feel 
ourselves thrown into an uncomfortable suspense on the 
subject, but it is all right. Our disappointment was great. 
It is distressing to abandon the enterprise, and the thought 
of presumptuously hazarding the lives of my family is equally 
distressing, especially while so wide a door is open in this 
wide vallev. Our friends here will none of them advise to 



54 The report was false. The Oregon party took their wagons with them. 
The California party left their wagons and went thence on horses. Rancroft, Hist, 
of Ore. I : 399. 400. 

55 Mr. George H. Himes, .\ssistant Secretary of the Oregon Historical Society, 
says that in his researches he has found that some went in this year from Piatt 
County. See also note 67. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 125 

go, unless we receive more favorable reports of the way. 
Yet I have some reason to suspect them of selfishness. We 
trust the Lord will soon remove our doubts. I can truly 
say my mind is strongly inclined to preach the g(~)spel in 
Oregon. 

We came all the way (from New York) with oin- own 
conveyance, which was the cause of our reaching Iowa so 
late. I commenced my labours immediately on our arrival, 
and preach part of the time in this place and Rock Island, 
Illinois, and the remainder of the time in the surrounding 
country, where we hope there will be a church constituted 
before long. 

The church at Rock Island appear solicitous to obtain my 
services the ensuing year, provided we do not cross the 
Rocky Mountains, and it may be my duty to comply with 
their request, yet the irritable state of my lungs admonishes 
me of the importance of finding a milder climate, and, as 
we are now broken up, we feel inclined to get as far south 
as we can, and be useful in a free state, if we shall find the 
way to Oregon closed. I shall write you immediately on 
learning the result of Lieut. Fremont's expedition. I sub- 
scribe mvself vour brother in Christ, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Davenport, Iowa Territory, March 15. 1844. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill. 
Dear Br.: 

The time has arrived when it becomes my duty to make 
my first quarter's report under the appointment made Nov. 
1, 1843. I have preached about one-fourth of my time in 
this place, part of the time at the mouth of Pine creek. 
Muscatine County, one Sabbath in Bloomington, a part of 
my time in Hickory Grove and Attens Grove. Lott County. 
one Sa'bbath at Cordova. ^^^ Rock Island Cour.ty. 111., and the 
remainder of the time at Rock Island, directly across the 
river from this place. 



56 Cordova is a small town about twenty miles north and east of Rock Island. 



126 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Br. Seley organized the church at Cordova last winter ; the 
church in this place Br. Brown supported half the time ; the 
church at Bloomington I formerly supplied ; the church at 
Rock Island has formerly had the fruit of Father Gillett's 
labors. All belong to Davenport Association. ... I have 
labored the whole time in the field, have preached 34 ser- 
mons, delivered one temperance address, attended 24 other 
sermons in protracted meetings ; 18 prayer meetings ; 6 
church meetings ; visited one common day school.^'' 1 Sab- 
bath school four times and addressed them each time, and 
traveled 428 miles. Eleven or twelve hopeful conversions 
have occurred in the field of my labors, all but one in Rock 
Island, in connection with a series of meetings carried on by 
Br. Thomas Powell and myself. 

I have baptised 8 and received one by letter into Rock 
Island church. I have made 55 pastoral visits. No monthly 
concerts sustained at present. Have obtained three signa- 
tures to tlie temperance pledge. . . . Received $22 from 
the people towards my support. Nothing paid for the vari- 
ous benevolent societies connected with our denomination. 

No auxiliary society has contributed for my support. One 
Sunday school at Rock Island, 6 teachers, about 25 scholars, 
and about 50 volumes in the library. No meeting house 
commenced. 

In consequence of the great uncertainty of being able to 
reach the American settlements in Oregon by wagons, the 
great destitution of ministerial labors in all this region, 
especially on the Upper Mississippi, the unsettled condition 
of Oregon and the late Indian depredations at the Walla 
Walla Mission station under the charge of Dr. Whitman. -^^ 
we have concluded to defer going west this spring; yet not 



57 The public school system in the Mississippi Valley began early. In Ohio, 
Indiana and Illinois, there were enacted in the twenties school laws providing for 
imblic common school instruction. In Iowa it came some time later. E. O. Dexter, 
A Hist, of Education in the United States, pp. 103-116. 

58 This probably refers to the trouble with the Indians in tlie late autumn of 
1842. Mrs. Whitman was insulted during Dr. Whitman's absence in the East, and 
fled to The Dalles. The mission mill at Waiilatpu, Whitman's station, was burned. 
The news of this, exaggerated and misdated by rumor, seems to have reached Ezra 
Fisher at this time. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 127 

without much rekictance and I trust attempting faithfully 
to commit our cause to Him whose we are and to whom we 
owe everything. Should the door be open so that duty shall 
appear plain, I now think I shall cheerfully undergo the 
privations of removing across the desert mountains to the 
Pacific Coast. May God direct and be it ours to obey. 

By the invitation of the church at Rock Island, 111., and 
bv the advice of all the brethren in this vicinity. I have 
consented to take charge of that church and a small church 
in Henry County, 12 miles east from that place, the com- 
ing year. These churches will be able to give us about two- 
thirds of a support, and, by the advice of the members of 
the Board of the Iowa Baptist Gen. Association and Br. 
Powell, we shall apply to your Board for a reappointment 
when my present appointment expires. 

In view of all the circumstances, should your Board cen- 
sure the course which we have pursued respecting the Ore- 
gon mission, you will have the faithfulness to administer af- 
fectionate reproof as becomes the responsible station you 
occupy. The church in Rock Island formed themselves 
into a Sabbath school society on the 5th of March and re- 
solved to make application to the American Sunday School 
Union for an appropriation of S. S. books from the special 
appropriation made for destitute Sunday schools in the 
Valley of the Mississippi. . . . 

All of which is respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Rock Island, 111., and vicinity. 

N. B. — Br. Brown will probably move to Parkhurst in a 
few days. Br. Seley has gone to Ohio and Kentucky on a 
meeting house begging for Bloomington. Br. Carpenter 
leaves Dubuque for Vt. in a few days — Burlington. FUooni- 
ington, Davenport and Dubuque are each in great want of a 
Baptist minister and I suppose Galena"^^ will be on the same 
list in a few months. 



59 Galena was an important center in tlie lead-mining district. It was laid out 
in 1827 and incorporated in 1839. Rv the census of 1850 it had a population of 
6,004, but has since declined. .Am. Encyc, VII: 563. 



128 CORRESPOXDE\'CE OF THE 

O! I wish our wise men, and especially our Baptist minis- 
ters who talk of sacrificing for Christ, could survey the al- 
most unbroken destitution on the Mississippi from Quincy 
to St. Anthony Falls^^ on both sides of the river, with all 
our flourishing villages, till they would heed the voice of the 
Spirit and separate at least a Paul and Barnabas for this 
work. The calls are imperious. 

Tell the brethren to take their latest maps of the western 
states and look over the field by their fire sides and then 
ask God, Who is to give all this people the bread of life? 
The field is increasing in importance every day. Soon it 
will go into other hands, and well it will be, if it goes not 
into the hands of the Romans,^^ Yours, 

E. F. 



Rock Island, Rock Island Co., 111., April 27, 1844. 
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br.: 

In behalf of the First Baptist Church in this place, and 
the Baptist church called ]\Iount Pleasant,^- in Henry Coun- 
ty, 12 miles southeast from this place, I am requested to 
solicit your aid for the support of my family one year from 
the time of the expiration of my present appointment. The 
above named churches wish me to devote my time entirely 
to the cause of Christ within their bounds and the imme- 
diate vicinity. My post office address is Rock Island, Rock 
Island County, 111. Rock Island is situated at the foot of 
the Upper Rapids on the east shore of the Mississippi River; 
contains about 1200 inhabitants. Three miles above is a 
rapidly rising village of something like 300 souls, where al- 

60 St. Anthony's Falls are, of course, the water power which gave rise to 
Minneapolis. There was but the barest beginning of a settlement at this time in 
the vicinity of the present Minneapolis and St. Paul. 

61 The extension of Roman Catholic work among the whites in the Upper 
Mississippi Valley first became prominent in the thirties. In 1841 the chapel giving 
the name to St. Paul, Minnesota, was built. A large German Catholic immigration 
into Illinois from 1841 on gave the church there an impetus. Cath. Encyc, under 
Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin. 

62 This Mount Pleasant church was apljarently in a rural neighborhood. No 
town of that name exists. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 129 

most any amount of water power may be employed. Al- 
ready two saws and two runs of stones are employed and 
four more stones are to go into operation next fall. Three 
miles south of this on Rock River another town is laid off 
at the foot of the falls of Rock River; they are just com- 
mencing to build at that place and six runs of stones will 
be put in operation next fall.^^ It is said that water power 
may be employed in these two places enough to drive 700 or 
1000 runs of stones the entire year. The country in the 
vicinity is becoming thickly populated for a new country. 
The number of communicants in the church in Rock Island 
is forty-three; and the average number of attendants at 
public worship is about sixty. The number of my family 
is six. It is desira'ble that my reappointment should com- 
mence at the expiration of the present appointment. Mount 
Pleasant church numbers communicants and probably about 
fifty will be the average number of attendants. . . . We 
have other places of preaching through the week. The 
amount of salary necessary for the support of my family 
would not fall much short of four hundred dollars. The 
church in Rock Island will pledge one hundred and seventy- 
five dollars, and the Mount Pleasant church fifty dollars. 
If your Board will appropriate one hundred dollars to my 
support, I will try and supply the remaining deficiencies. 

Rock Island is the seat of justice for the county and I am 
no enthusiast when I say it is destined in less than twenty 
years to be second to no other town on this river in Illi- 
nois. ^^ The water power will eventually line the whole bank 
of the river with mills from Molein [Moline] to this place, 
a distance of three miles, and also the entire east shore of 
the Island itself the same distance, which terminates oppo- 
site the upper part of this town, and, if necessary, half the 
water of the Mississippi may be employed in driving ma- 
chinery at a comparatively small expense. No other Bap- 

63 This village is the present Moline. The village south of Rock Island, on 
Rock River, is the present Milan. 

64 If the author includes Moline (the author's Molein) with Rock Island, this 
prophecy was fulfilled. 



130 CORRESPONDEXCE OF THE 

tist church in the place. The other churches are a large 
Methodist church and a pretty able Presbyterian church for 
a new country. 

The surrounding country along the river and for ten or 
twelve miles back is capable of sustaining a dense popula- 
tion, being more than ordinarily well supplied with timber, 
abounding in coal of a good quality, and is fast settling with 
eastern emigrants. 

We hope to sustain three Sabbath schools the present 
summer in connection with these churches. In behalf of 
the above named churches. 

EZRA FISHER, 

Pastor. 

The First Baptist Church in Rock Island, county of Rock 
Island, and the Baptist Church at Mount Pleasant. Henry 
Co., concur in the foregoing application to the Executive 
Committee of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, 
to appoint Elder Ezra Fisher, as their Missionary. 
Rock Island & 
Mt. Pleasant, 111. 
May 3, 1844. 

HARMAN G. REYNOLDS. 

NATHAN W. WASHBURN. 
Joint Committee of said Churches. 

The Executive Board of the Baptist Con. of Iowa concur 
in the above and recommend the reappointment of Br. 
Fisher and the desired appropriation. 

C. E. BROWN. 

Cor. Sec. 



Rock Island. Rock Island County, 111.. June 15. 1844. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br. : 

I now proceed to make my report for the second and last 
quarter under the appointment Nov. 1, 1843. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 131 

I have labored the whole time in my appropriate field of 
labor except 9 days in which I was absent on private busi- 
ness and during- that time I spent most of the time as profit- 
ably to the cause of Christ as I should have done in the field, 
being absent from none of my Sabbath appointments. It is 
with your Board to judge of the propriety of making a pro- 
portionate deduction from the sum appropriated. 

I have preached 35 sermons during the quarter, delivered 
one temperance address, attended 24 weekly prayer meet- 
ings, 15 church and conference meetings and traveled 321 
miles to and from my appointments. . . . Baptised one 
and received three by letter into the churches under my 
charge. 

Have made 40 pastoral visits. We have no monthly con- 
cert yet established, but sustain two weekly prayer meetings 
in Rock Island churches. . . . Assisted in the examina- 
tion of Br. Robb, at Mt. Pleasant, Henry Co., Iowa, for ordi- 
nation at the meeting of the Iowa Baptist Convention. The 
church at Rock Island paid $1 for the Home Missionary 
Society; nothing for the other benevolent societies. Have 
raised about five dollars for Sabbath school library and I 
have received about $42 of my salary the past quarter. Mt. 
Pleasant church have pledged $8 for Home Missions, to be 
paid next fall. I have received nothing towards my salary 
from any auxiliary society. 

We have organized a Bible class of 12 scholars. We 
have two Sunday schools with our people, 12 teachers, about 
50 scholars, and about 100 volumes in the library. We have 
bought at auction a mechanic's lien on a brick house 20 feet 
by 40, with the roof on and doors in, secured most of the 
company's rights to the house and lot and expect to secure 
the rest and fit it up as a place of worship during the com- 
ing year. 

I attended the Iowa Baptist Convention with which our 
church cooperate. Session harmonious and deeply interest- 
ing to us in this new country. Collections were taken up in 



132 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

aid of the Home and Foreign Missions and American and 
Foreign Bible Societies, in all amounting to $21. 

All which is respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 

P. S. — I still feel impressed with the importance of es- 
tablishing a mission in Oregon and, should the God of mis- 
sions spare our lives and give us health and we learn that 
the way is practicable with wagons as far as the Walla 
Walla, we hope to be ready to go out next spring, if we can 
have assurance of being sustained till churches can be 
raised up to support the gospel in that new territory. Our 
journey last year, together with the expenses of the family 
for the present year, strongly reminds me that $300 will be 
less than will sustain my family a year, should my services 
commence at the time of our departure from this place. 
Br. Johnson^'' and myself have had some conversation with 
Br. Brabrook, the Foreign Mission agent for this state and 
Missouri, and he thinks the mission would appropriately 
come under the cognizance of the F. Mission Society, as it 
would tend to facilitate the establishment of an Indian mis- 
sion west of the mountains. It matters but little to us with 
which Board we stand connected, provided we are enabled 
to devote ourselves entirely to the work of the ministry and 
not leave our families to suffer. I greatly desire that Br. 
Johnson may be appointed and immediately encouraged to 
go. I know of no man in the West I would prefer to ac- 
company me, should it please the Lord to open the way for 
me. The undertaking is great and we greath^ need more 
than one, that, in the case of death, the work might not be 
entirely suspended, the labor, money and time lost. I have 
just learned that the company going this year would prob- 
ably be about fifteen hundred. Please write me the wishes 
of the Board. Yours, 

E. F. 



65 Rev. Hezckiah Johnson, to whom frequent reference is made in the letters 
from now on, was born in Maryland in 1799. He moved to Ohio in 1816. and was 
ordained there in 1827. He moved to Iowa in 1838. In 1845 he went to Oregon 
as the author records. He died in Oregon in 1866. C. H. Mattoon, Bap. Annals 
of Oregon, 1 : 45. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER.. 133 

Rock Island, 111., Aug. 29. "44. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

Through the appointment of the Iowa Baptist Convention, 
at this late date I proceed to give you a brief outline of the 
wants of the Baptists in this growing Territory. ... At 
this time the population of this Territory is but a fraction 
less than 90,000^^ souls, occupying a region of country about 
120 miles from east to west, and from the mouth of the 
Des Moines to Prairedes Chien [Prairie du Chien], and soon 
the entire territory from the Mississippi to the Missouri will 
give place to civilization. Lee County contains 9900 souls, 
several flourishing villages on the rivers, two churches, and 
four preachers who work on their farms. Des Moines has 
9109 souls ; five or six openings for Baptist preaching. Burl- 
ington, w^ith a population of 2000 souls and about 15 Bap- 
tist members, is wholly neglected. A Baptist church might 
here be easily collected. Louisa Co., 3238 souls, one church 
and one Baptist minister. Van Buren Co., 9,019; facilities 
for agriculture and manufactories are very great ; at present 
two Baptist ministers. Keosauqua, an important point, has 
a church greatly needing a minister, and the ministers in 
this county have to spend a portion of their time in other 
counties. Henry County contains 6,017 souls. Elder Burnet 
has organized a church in the county seat in the midst of 
about 700 souls and preaches half of his time with this 
church. Most of this county is destitute of Baptist preach- 
ing. Jefferson County contains 5,694 souls almost entirely 
destitute of Baptist preaching, except occasionally, and that 
rarely, w'hen a Baptist minister travels that way and preaches 
a sermon to a few scattered Baptists and others who gladly 
hear the Word. Two small churches were recently organized 
in this county, but the county town is entirely neglected by 
our ministers. Baptists have joined other churches tem- 
porarily (a bad business) because they have no Baptist 



66 A census of 1836 showed the counties of Demoine and Dubuque, which 
included the present Iowa, to have a population of 10521. In 1838 Iowa Territory- 
had a population of 21,859. William Salter, Iowa, pp. 208, 230. 

In 1840 its population was 43,112, and in 1850, 192,214. Am. Cyc. IX:333. 



134 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

preaching. Washington Co. contains 3,120 souls. Br. ElHott 
some time ago visited this county and baptized a few. A 
church, in a somewhat flourishing condition at the county 
seat, needs a pastor immediately. Muscatine County, 2,882 
souls, with a church at Bloomington, is about to settle a 
pastor. In this county are several interesting openings for 
Baptist preaching. In the above named churches are two 
licensed preachers who might be rendered quite useful as 
preachers, but are obliged to pursue their ordinary occupa- 
tions. Scott County has 2750 souls, two churches and one 
minister. Davenport, without Baptist preaching, has a 
population of 1000. Johnson and Cedar Counties, with a 
population of 5166, and Linn with a population of 2643, have 
four churches and a number of important settlements with 
but one ordained minister. Clinton and Jackson Cos., with 
a population of about 3000 souls and two organized churches 
and probably another soon to be constituted at De Witt, 
have no ordained minister and only the occasional labors of 
Elder Brown. DuBuque has 4052 souls, one church at the 
seat of justice and an ordained minister. The remaining 
counties, together with the new purchase, 50 miles in width, 
extending the entire length of the Ter. from north to south, 
the southern portion of which is becoming thickly settled, for 
a new country, with farms from 10 to 100 acres already un- 
der cultivation, contain a population of at least 22,000 souls, 
with but one Baptist minister and two small churches, al- 
though there are a very considerable number of brethren and 
sisters scattered through this region like sheep without a 
shepherd, anxiously desiring and praying that God send 
them the faithful missionary who will collect them into 
churches and administer to them the ordinances of the 
gospel. Now, dear brother, what does this Territory need? 
Do we not need one man in each of these counties, at least? 
Do we not need one minister in each of the important towns 
. . . who can devote himself entirely to the work to 
which the Head of the church has assigned him? Then, if 
we could have a few of our ministering brethren who would 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 135 

like to settle their rising families on farms, so that they 
could devote a portion of their time to preaching the Word 
and gathering up churches and at the same time bless Zion, 
their own families and their own souls, the labors of such 
brethren would be appreciated. Perhaps more than all, we 
need wise lay brethren to move to our Territory for the sake 
of doing good — men of prayer, good works, and faith too, 
who are well established in the doctrines of the gospel, who 
know well how to sympathize with the ministry and devise 
and execute plans by which the ministry may be kept con- 
stantly employed in their peculiar calling. Now let us ask 
you, will our ministers and deacons and churches in the 
older and more favored portions of our land compare our 
destitution and prospects for usefulness with their own and 
then in the fear of God ask what they can do for us? By 
order of the convention. 

EZRA FISHER, 
Chairman of the Committee. 
N. B. — I learn that 1500 souls have crossed the Rocky 
Mountains this summer for Oregon.^''. Please let me know 
if the Board will appoint Br. Johnson to go out with us 
next spring? We have a promising young brother in this 
place from Mass., by the name of Stone, whom I think this 
church will invite to become their pastor when we leave. 

Yours. E. F. 



Rock Island, 111., Sept. 16. 1844. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

ij- ^ ^ jp ^ ^; 

Should providence open the door, we expect to leave for 
Oregon early next spring with the companies that will then 
go out to Oregon and California. I should like to know 
whether the Board will be willing that the appointment shall 

67 McLoughlin placed the number of the immigrants of 1844 at 1,475. Ban- 
croft, Hist, of Ore. 1 :448. 

George H. Himes, as a result of extensive researches, believes it to have 
been only 600 or 700. British officers in Oregon in 1845-6 placed it at about 1000. 
Documents Relative to Warre and Vavasour's Military Reconnoisance in Oregon, 
1845-6, ed. by Joseph Schafer, in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. X:U. 



136 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

be so made that the services shall commence at the time of 
our departure. 

You will allow me to repeat the earnest request that Br. 
Johnson be appointed, if practicable, to accompany me. My 
views of the importance of the enterprise are in no way 
diminished. A company will go to California next spring,^^ 
among which will be several valuable Baptist families, who 
will settle with the companies that have gone before them 
on the Sacramento River near San Francisco Bay. Is it 
not time that the Baptists had two missionaries west of the 
mountains to look after the rising interests on the Pacific? 
(3ur health is tolerably good, but sickness is becoming more 
frequent than it has been this season. 

I shall forward my quarterly report by the next mail. 

Yours truly, 

EZRA FISHER. 
P. S. — Please write me soon and let me know the wishes 
of the Board respecting the contemplated mission. 

Yours, E. F. 



Rock Island, 111., Sept. 17, 1844. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br.: 

I proceed to make my report for the first quarter under the 
appointment bearing date May 1st. 

I have preached thirty-five sermons, attended sixteen pray- 
er meetings, five conference meetings, seven covenant meet- 
ings and traveled three hundred and twenty-five miles. We 
have no conversions to record within our congregations. 
Baptized none. Received three by letter. Have made 
seventy-five pastoral visits and attended one funeral, a mem- 



68 The first important overland immigration to California from the United 
States was in 1841. Bancroft. Hist, of California IV :263. 

The overland immigration of 1845, the preparations for which are here men- 
tioned, numbered about 1500. Ibid. IV:571. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 137 

ber of this church. Monthly concert is attended with this 
church. Visited one common school. Obtained no signa- 
tures to the temperance pledge. We have one young brother 
fitting for college ; as yet he has not avowed his intentions 
for the ministry. Organized no church. No minister or- 
dained. Received sixty-five dollars toward my support 
($65.00). Received nothing for any of the missionary, 
educational or other benevolent societies. We have received 
nothing from any of the auxiliary societies towards my sal- 
ary. One Bible class, about 15 scholars. Three Sunday 
schools, about 15 teachers, sixty-five scholars, and about 150 
volumes in the libraries. Done nothing to the meeting house 
since my last report. 

The Campbellites are making great efforts in this place 
and vicinity to draw off members of other denominations, 
and. in view of all the circumstances, I have thought it my 
duty to deliver a lecture each Sabbath on the doctrines and 
ordinances of the gospel ; thus far they seem to awaken an 
interest by confirming the brethren and eliciting the at- 
tention of the community. Amid the flood of error with 
which we are surrounded, we greatly need the truths of 
God's Word exhibited in the spirit of meekness and zeal of 
the primitive Christians. Truly we need the wisdom of 
the serpent as well as the harmlessness of the dove. I have 
never witnessed in any place in the valley so much deter- 
mined opposition to the Baptists, as such, as in Rock Island 
and vicinity. Perhaps I have never felt more forcibly the 
thought that the gospel, and the whole gospel, is God's ap- 
pointed means of accomplishing His purposes in bringing 
sinners to repentance and establishing the churches in the 
truth than during the past quarter. 

In the midst of our labors and trials, I have one great 

consolation, that I, in common with all the missionaries of 

your Society, have the prayers of hundreds of thousands of 

God's dear people. ,. - ,, 

Yours respectfully. 

EZRA FISHER, Missionarv. 



138 CORRESPOXDEN'CE OF THE 

I am waiting with some solicitude to hear from you rela- 
tive to the subject of Oregon. 

Cannot Br. Johnson be appointed to go out with us? 

Yours, E. FISHER. 



Rock Island, 111., Nov. 5th. 1844. 
Rev. B. M. Hill. 
Dear Br.: 

Yours of Sept. 27th was duly received and I now take pen 
to answer it, together with other communications which it 
becomes my duty to make in the same sheet. The Board of 
the Iowa Conv. understands the course your Board has pur- 
sued in relation to Br. Seeley's tour last spring and are sat- 
isfied, I believe. 

On this subject of my going to Oregon next spring, I 
would state that my views have in no way altered as regards 
the importance of carrying the gospel of Christ there imme- 
diately, and, unless some special providence intervenes, we 
shall make our arrangements to leave this place some time in 
the month of April next. The question whether the time of 
our service shall commence when we leave this place or 
when we arrive at the field of our future labor will not be 
material with me farther than the settlement of the question 
whether the amount will enable me to devote myself to the 
work of the ministry unimpeded by secular labor. I trust 
my ruling desire is to render the greatest possible service 
to the cause of Christ ; I feel perfectly willing to refer that 
matter to your Board. 

I have never asked what were the views of the Board re- 
specting the time of the transmission of the funds to me for 
my services during the year after our arrival. I suppose, 
however, that such would be the distance and difficulty of 
regular communication from Oregon to N. York and so long 
a time must necessarily intervene between the time of mak- 
ing my reports and that of receiving funds in answer to said 
reports, your Board would advance to me the amount agreed 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 139 

upon for one year before taking our departure from this 
place. Your Board may possibly know of some convenient 
and safe way of transmitting drafts so that they may reach 
us seasonably to prevent us from being reduced to suffer- 
ings for the want of the common comforts of life.^^ I in- 
tended to have laid that subject before you personally while 
at Syracuse last fall, but it did not occur to my mind, when 
I could have an interview with you. Br. John Peck how- 
ever advised me personally. He thought in this case it would 
be the pleasure of the Board to advance the year's salary be- 
fore we left Iowa. I have just received a letter from Br. 
Johnson still expressing a strong desire to accompany me 
to Oregon, informing me that you say, if money can be 
raised, he can be appointed to go with me, provided he can 
receive a recommendation from the Executive Board of the 
Iowa Baptist Convention. This being the ca'se, I laid the 
subject before said Board on the first instant, and the Board 
passed the following resolutions : 

1st. Resolved that this Board cordially recommend Elder 
Hezekiah Johnson as a most suitable man for the A. B. H. 
M. Society's Board to appoint as a missionary to Oregon to 
accompany Elder Ezra Fisher to that field next spring. 

2d. Resolved, that the Secretary be instructed to accom- 
pany this recommendation with a brief description of Elder 
Johnson's qualifications for a missionary in a new country. 

In complying with these instructions, I will simply state 
that I am confident I give the sentiment of every faithful 
Baptist in Iowa who knows him when I say that Br. John- 
son's uniform ardent piety, his strong perceptive and compar- 
ing powers, his originality of thought, his familiarity with 
Bible doctrines, the facility with which he defends them, 
exposes error in the spirit of the gospel, and the long experi- 
ence he has had as a faithful pioneer of the West in planting 
and fostering churches, as well as enduring hardships and 
privations, render him eminently qualified for the work of 



69 See note 72. 



140 CORRESPONDE.XCE OF THE 

a missionary in a new country, where error is rife and coun- 
sellors are few. Without detraction from the merits of all 
our worthy brethren, I speak the sentiments of all when I 
say he is regarded as one of the few fathers of our denomi- 
nation in Iowa. I have long known him and taken great 
pleasure in his counsels. Your Board will not wonder then 
when I repeat the earnest request that Br. Johnson may be 
appointed to accompany me. Will you think of from 7000 
to 10,000''° souls in Oregon, within two days' ride from the 
mouth of the Willamette,'' speaking the English language, 
and that number fast increasing from the western, the east- 
ern and middle states, without a single Baptist preacher, and 
will not your Board appoint this one more missionary, that 
we may follow the example set by our blessed Saviour of 
sending out His disciples by twos? If no other way can be 
devised, will your Board not encourage Br. Johnson to cir- 
culate in New England and raise the requisite funds during 
the winter? God knows what is best, and, if my importunity 
is too great, I know He will pardon and I trust you will do 
the same. 

I attended the Davenport Association the second week in 
Oct. at Marion, the county seat of Lynn County, Iowa. The 
session was harmonious and one of more than usual interest 
and some tokens of divine favor were manifest. Collections 
were taken in aid of home and foreign missions. W^e trust 
a lasting blessing will follow. On Saturday before the fourth 
Sab. in Oct., we organized a new association in this place, 
known by the name of Rock Island Baptist Association, in- 
cluding but four churches, but an extent of territory more 
than 100 miles in length on the Mississippi. 



70 This number was largely over-estimated. In his letter of Feb. 27, 1846, 
written after he reached Oregon, the author places the population at five or six 
thousand, and this was after the population had been doubled by the immigration of 
1845. Deducting this, the population in 1844 would be between two and three 
thousand. Hancroft places it at the latter figure. Hist of Oregon, 1:508. G. H. 
Himes thinks it was 1,200 or 1,500. Lieut. Piel gave it as 3,000 before the coming 
of the 1845 immigration, and Warre and Vavasour gave it as 6,000 after the immi- 
gration came. See J. Schafer in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. X :53. 

71 The origin and the original form of the name Willamette are obscure. G. H. 
Himes finds the meaning of "Green Water," given it in two early, entirely inde- 
pendent sources. If these sources are reliable, it is an Indian name and the present 
spelling closely approximates the original sound. See also in the spelling: Bancroft, 
Hist of N. W. Coast 11:60, 61, where a summary of different authorities is given. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 141 

Although the weather was unfavorable, the scene was truly 
pleasing, and on Sab. a collection was taken in favor of 
home missions, amounting to four dollars and sixty cents. I 
will forward you the minutes of said Association when pub- 
lished. I have used the above named $4.60 and will deduct 
the same from my next draft. 

Your unworthy brother in Christ, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Sec. pro tem., Iowa Bapt. Con. 



Rock Island, 111., Dec. 16th, 1844. 
Corresponding Sec. A. B. H. M. Socy. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

It becomes my duty in the order of God's providence to 
make my second quarterly report. 

My time has been devoted almost exclusively to the work 
during the quarter, and more than an ordinary portion of 
my time has been spent in associations and convention. Dur- 
ing the quarter I have preached twenty-eight sermons and 
participated in almost all the public discussions which have 
come before the public meetings of our denominations, such 
as home and foreign missions, Bible cause, publication cause, 
education, etc. Attended twenty weekly prayer and confer- 
ence meetings, as the church in this place sustains both a 
weekly prayer meeting and conference meeting, which have 
been well sustained through the season. Attended four cove- 
nant meetings and two church meetings, four meetings of 
the Board of the Iowa Convention ; traveled five hundred and 
forty miles. I have no evidence of any case of hopeful con- 
version during the quarter, yet we have had the satisfaction 
of seeing an increased attention in several instances in our 
congregations. I have baptised none. We have received 
three by letter during the quarter. I have made sixty-five 
(65) pastoral visits. We sustain the monthly concert in the 
church in this place instead of our weekly prayer meeting. 
I have visited two (2) common schools. Obtained no signa- 
tures to the temperance pledge. No young men preparing 



142 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

for the ministry. Neither organized a church nor assisted in 
ordaining a minister. Assisted in the organization of an as- 
sociation in this place. Have received about fifty dollars to- 
ward my support ; on the subscription for my salary, received 
four dollars and sixty cents, the amount of a collection taken 
up at the organization of the Rock Island Association for the 
cause of home missions, and nine ($9) dollars for the Home 
Missionary Society in the Mt. Pleasant church, Henry Coun- 
ty, where I preach once a month ; have received nothing for 
the Foreign Mission, Bible Publication or Education So- 
cieties. 

We have one Bible class of about fifteen scholars and 
three small Sabbath schools. The one in this place is quite 
small and quite interesting; about thirty-five children and 
ten teachers. The one with the Mt. Pleasant church com- 
prises both young and old and is quite small. The other is 
sustained by a Br. Gillmore, twelve miles south of this. It 
has about thirty children. The church in this place are now 
making an effort, and I think it will be successful, to finish 
the house we purchased last summer. This has engaged 
part of my time the past week. 

I have during the quarter attended the Davenport Associa- 
tion and the convention at Canton in this state. On the 
whole, although we have witnessed no marked tokens of 
divine favor, yet we think the churches are becoming more 
consistent, exercising a better discipline and evince a laud- 
able growth in the Christian graces and I can but feel a de- 
gree of assurance that God will soon appear in answer to 
the prayers of His people to revive His work with us. . . . 

All of which is respectfully submitted. 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Rock Island. 

N. B. — Yours of Nov. 29th came to hand today informing 
me of the appointment of Br. H. Johnson to accompany me 
to Oregon. The intelligence rejoiced my soul. May God 
favour the decision of your Board and greatly bless the enter- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 143 

prise. We are making every arrangement to leave as early 
as the tenth of April, should the All Wise permit. 

I will answer partly your proposed questions. I verily be- 
lieve the enterprise is of God and trust he will prosper it 
and fondly hope the time is not distant when we shall see 
churches in Oregon able and ready to sustain the gospel and 
even carry it to others. Your Board will readily see that I 
can give you no definite answer. I am willing to confide 
that matter to the wisdom and integrity of the Board, when 
they shall have learned the true state of the cause by an ac- 
tual survey of 'the field. 

I should hope never to encumber the cause of missions 
with any obligation to support my family while my labours 
are unprofitable. As soon as we can open the way for our 
support in Oregon, it will be our greatest pleasure to see the 
Board directing their aid to other and more destitute fields. 
As it relates to remittance after the expiration of the first 
year, should your Board think it for the honour of the cause 
to continue my services, I think, were you to permit us to 
make drafts at the expiration of each semi-annual report on 
your treasurer, or on yourself, we could sell those drafts by 
endorsing them ourselves, as I understand there is a mer- 
chant from Boston doing business at Oregon City at the 
falls of the Willamette.72 

Yours, E. F. 



Rock Island, 111., Jan. 10, 1845. 
Rev. B. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

In my quarterly report of December 16th I promised to 
write you soon and give the Board in brief my views of the 
plan of our future operations in Oregon, should God gracious- 
ly permit us to labor in that field. 

T2 This is possibly a reference to F. W. Pettygrove, the Oregon City agent of 
A. G. and A. W. Benson. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:417, 422. 

Money could also have been sent by Hudsons Bay Company's drafts. 



144 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

We expect to find our field of labor, so far as our denomi- 
nation is concerned, in an entirely new and unformed state : 
we shall consequently find everything to do or things will 
be left undone. We know some Baptist members have emi- 
grated to that country '^ and others are going, but it is rea- 
sonable to suppose they are scattered. Should Br. Johnson 
accept of the appointment, which I trust he will, I would 
suppose we should select two of the most favorable positions 
to reach the greatest amount of inhabitants, on or near the 
navigable waters and as near each other as circumstances 
will admit, so as to enjoy each other's counsels and, as cir- 
cumstances permit, labor in public, and in these places make 
it our great business to establish churches in the apostolic 
order. 

I presume we shall find, in exploring the field, more points 
of importance that we shall be able to visit monthly on the 
Sabbaths. I think it probable we may find it our duty to 
establish something like circuits which we may reach period- 
ically, while others more remote may demand occasional 
visits. I trust we shall feel that our great business will be 
preaching the Word both publicly and from house to house. 
Yet in a country where education is unprovided for by law,^* 
and where every false religionist is propagating his dogmas 
through the medium of schools, it seems almost indispensable 
to the greatest and most permanent usefulness of the gospel 
minister that he become the guardian of youth and patron 
of moral and religious education. The Pope of Rome has al- 
ready appointed a Bishop of Oregon and has sent out two 
ecclesiastics, and with these fathers are to be sent seven fe- 



73 A number of Baptists, prominent among whom was David T. Lenox, had 
come to Oregon with the immigration of 1843. Lenox and a number of others 
settled on Tualatin plains and there organized in May. 1845, a Baptist church. 
This was the only Baptist church in Oregon until 1846. The Rev. Vincent Snelling, 
a Baptist minister, came with the immigration of 1844, and was, as far as is known, 
the first Baptist clergyman in Oregon. C. H. Mattoon, Baptist Annals of Oregon 
1:1, 2, 39, 43. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:421, 466. 

74 The author was right as to the absence of public state instruction. This 
did not come until much later. The first school in Oregon supported by a public 
tax was opened in Milton, near St. Helens, Columbia Countv, September 15, 1851. 
G. H. Himes; Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:35; 1:201, 325. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 145 

male missionaries and a number of priests/^. I therefore 
think that at an early period schools should be established 
under pious teachers, and, as soon as practicable, one should 
be founded on liberal principles, adapted to the wants of the 
country and especially to the demands of our own denomi- 
nation, which should rise with the demands of the people till 
it shall eventually furnish the means for a complete educa- 
tion. Should congress pass the land bill, which has so long 
been before both branches of our national legislature,'^ I 
trust we shall find friends to the Baptist cause sufficient to 
carry out such a plan, without materially detracting from 
our ministerial usefulness. 

While other denominations are directing their energies to 
evangelize the natives and half-breeds,'''' I think Baptist mis- 
sionaries should not look on with indifference in this work 
of blessing the remnants of these once numerous tribes. If 
anything more can be done, a way may be opened for the 
successful introduction of missionaries in the most favored 
positions and thereby effect a great saving of time and ex- 
pense to the cause of missions. I will not multiply. But 
you will allow me to say that Upper California is becoming 
a place of great attraction to western emigrants, and among 
them are Baptists who will ever pray for the ordinances as 
they were delivered. I am personally acquainted with some 
of these, who are inquiring whether the Home Missionary 
Society will not appoint them as missionaries. We shall 
become acquainted with these brethren in our journey, and 
a correspondence at least may be kept up with them by 
which we mav learn the wants of that countrv. 



75 The first Catholic priests came to Oregon in 1838. One of these, Blanchet, 
was created Archbishop of Oregon in 1843. In 1844 a company of five priests, a 
number of lay brothers, and six sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, came from 
Europe. The "two ecclesiastics" referred to by the author were possibly Fathers 
Blanchet and Demers, who had come in 1838. Several others, notably Rev. P. J. 
De Smet, came to the country between 1838 and the arrival of the party of 1844. 
Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:315, 327. 

76 There had been at several times bills before Congress providing for grants 
of lands to settlers in Oregon. The reference here must be to the Atchison bill in 
the Senate, and possibly to an Oregon bill in the House — neither carried. No 
Oregon donation land grant act was passed until the famous act of 1850. Bancroft, 
Hist, of Ore. 1:379, 384, 386, 388 : 11:260. 

77 The reference here is, of course, to the earlier Protestant missions in 
Oregon — those of the Methodists and of the American Board. He seems here not 
to be thinking of the Roman Catholic missions to the Indians. 



146 CORRESPOXDENXE OF THE 

We hope soon to form churches which will relieve your 
Board in part at least in sustaining us, and it shall be one 
part of our duty to teach the brethren that the gospel is a 
sacrificing system. As to the amount it may require from 
your Board to enable us to live the second year, so far as I 
am concerned it shall be left to your Board and myself to 
decide, when God shall in His wisdom make known to us 
our duty. I expect, if I am faithful to God, you will appre- 
ciate it ; if not, your aid in my support must necessaril}^ 
cease. Your Board will give me their instructions and make 
known their wishes. 

We are making preparations for the journey. The winter 
yields us the hope at least that we shall have an early spring. 
We must be ready to leave this place as soon as the first 
day in April. It would be desirable that the draft of which 
you speak in yours of Nov. 29 should be here by the first of 
March. 

Yours as ever, 

EZRA FISHER. 

P. S. — I made my last quarterly report on the 16th of 
Dec. and requested you to forward me a draft of thirty-six 
dollars and forty cents ($36.40) for the two last quarters, 
after deducting $13.60 which I have received in this region. 

N. B. — I have one farther request. Will your Board for- 
ward me a draft for my services with this people up to the 
first of April when the other draft is forwarded and let me 
mail my report just before I leave? I will here say that my 
time will be necessarily somewhat interrupted in making 
preparations for the journey, but I hope to be able to spend 
most of the time in the ministry. 

Yours, E. F, 



Rock Island, 111., March 14, 1845. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

I proceed in brief to make out my quarterly report for the 
quarter ending this day, being the third quarter of the year. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 147 

I have labored all the time except so much as has been 
necessary for me to make preparations for our journey to 
Oregon ; and these labors have made much larger drafts 
on my time than they would in N. Y., where everything can 
be readily obtained and every brother is ready to give timely 
assistance. I have spent no time in my private business be- 
yond the above named labors, and they probably have cost 
me 135 miles' travel and three weeks' time, yet I have met 
all my regular preaching appointments and most of the pray- 
er meeting appointments, but my pastoral visits have been 
neglected to my grief. But such must be, or I must abandon 
the desired enterprise. Preached 21 sermons and have been 
assisted by several visiting brethren on Sabbaths ; 12 prayer 
meetings, 8 conference meetings. 5 covenant meetings and 
traveled 124 miles ; no hopeful conversions among my people ; 
none baptised ; received none by letter. Monthly concert is 
attended at one place. Rock Island church. Made 48 re- 
ligious visits. . . . Assisted in the organization of the 
Pine Blufifs Church in the south part of this county on the 
first Sabbath in February, and in the ordination of Br. Cyrus 
G. Clarke as their pastor. Addressed the church on the oc- 
casion and gave the charge to the candidate. . . . Re- 
ceived nothing from any auxiliary society toward my sup- 
port, but about $30 from subscriptions. Have one Bible class 
and about 12 scholars, two Sabbath schools and about 50 
scholars and 7 teachers. The church at Rock Island are 
making arrangements to finish the house they purchased last 
summer and will probably be able to occupy it by June next. 

I wrote you about two months ago requesting you to for- 
ward in advance of the report the amount of my salary up to 
the first of April in a draft in connection with the advance 
draft for my salary next year. But as yet I have received 
neither. Will you forward me the draft immediately, if you 
have not done it? 

Respectfully submitted. 

EZRA FISHER. 
Missionary at Rock Island. 



148 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

N. B. — I have received no letter from you since the 29th 
of Nov. In a letter of the 4th of Nov. you informed me that 
my salary would be paid in advance about the month of 
Feb. or March and in one you requested me to make every 
preparation necessary [for the Oregon journey]. I have 
done so as far as my means will allow and am now waiting 
with great anxiety to receive the drafts to enable me to finish 
the outfit. The little property I had I sold at a great sacri- 
fice and the outfit is more expensive than I anticipated, but, 
if the draft or drafts reach this place in season, we can be 
ready in ten or twelve days for the journey. We are anxious- 
ly expecting them every mail. We ought to be on the way 
as soon as two or three weeks from this at farthest, but must 
stay till your instructions reach me here.^^. The 4th of April 
is the day fixed upon for our departure from this place. We 
feel that we need greatly the prayers of your Board, especial- 
ly that Heaven may bless the mission. I am more and more 
convinced of the importance of the enterprise and that God 
only can sustain and give us success. You will forgive my 
importunity. I know not how to lay over on suspense an- 
other year. I fear I am too solicitous ; if so, may God for- 
give. Br. Johnson is probably on his way at this time to In- 
dependence, Missouri, where I hope to join him, God per- 
mitting. 

Your unworthy brother in Christ. 

EZRA FISHER. 

March 14, Evening. Just received my commission and 
regret that I had not known three weeks ago that in this 
case your Board would not have violated their usual rule. I 
shall stay in this place till you forward me the order, or 
order N. B. Stanford to receive the draft for me and order 
it paid, which I think he will do. In this case, I shall write 
you to that efifect before leaving. 

Yours in the gospel, 
EZRA FISHER. 

78 The emigrants {or Oregon left as early in the Spring as possible to reach 
Oregon before the winter rains. Some left as early as March, others as late as 
May. See Johnson and Winter, in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. VII :68. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 149 

Rock Island, 111., March 22d, 1845. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

I received the commission, dated Feb. 1st and 28th, and 
read it with mingled emotions of pleasure and regret. 

By that it appears there is some little misunderstanding 
between you and me relative to the time when my quarterly 
report becomes due. I know the commission under which I 
have been laboring the last nine months was dated the 1st 
of May; but my time of service under the former appoint- 
ment of six months not having expired till the fifteenth of 
June, I have made all my quarterly reports to correspond 
with that date. Hence my quarterly report which you ex- 
pected to be due the first of Feb. was not due till the 15th 
of March. Yet, not having heard from you after my inquiry 
of January 10th, I prepared my report one day before the 
time in order to get it into the mail at as early a date as 
practicable, and on that evening the commission appointing 
me a missionary to Oregon arrived, in which you stated that 
you would hold back the draft of $300 a few days. I greatly 
hope that I shall find it in the office on the arrival of the 
next mail as the time has now arrived that traveling is toler- 
ably good and I have exhausted all my pecuniary means in 
the preparation for the journey at a great sacrifice of my 
property, and that cheerfully, and have already incurred as 
many debts as I dare till the draft arrives ; yet I have to 
buy all my flour, some clothing and other articles which must 
be procured before we start. You may judge what my anx- 
iety must be on the arrival of every mail when I find that it 
contains nothing for me. I wrote a letter and put it in the 
hands of Br. Byron of Dubuque, which you have undoubted- 
ly received before this. 

I forgot to state the sum which will be due me on the first 
of April, but you will see that it will be $29.00, by a refer- 
ence to my report. I have made arrangements with Mr. 
Napoleon B. Buford to take the draft out of the post office 
and order it paid in his own name instead of mine. When 



150 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

you receive an order from me to pay $29 to N. B. Buford 
on a draft given for my services up to the first day of April, 
you will please pay the said $29 and take the draft, whatever 
may be the face of the draft, without any power of attorney 
from me to said Buford. 

Yours under date of Nov. 14th. 1844, says : "Yours of 
16th of Sept. was laid before our Ex. Board at their last 
meeting and your request to have your salary commence at 
the time of your starting for Oregon was agreed to." But 
in the commission you state, "for the period of twelve 
months to receive three hundred dollars from the said Board, 
or at that rate per annum, the time to commence as soon as 
you reach the Territory, the above sum to cover traveling 
expenses and salary and you to derive the remainder of your 
support from the people among whom you labor." 

Now I have sacrificed at least $300 in preparation for the 
journey and my pecuniary means are so reduced that I must 
break at least $100 or $150 on the salary to be ready to start, 
and then we have a wilderness of 2500 miles to cross, with 
not a single church organization to receive us and provide 
even our bread. Now I leave your Board to say whether of 
the two letters shall define the time in which my salary shall 
commence. The sacrifice is made and I shall go, God being 
my helper, and do what I can. I do not faint or feel dis- 
couraged. It is not absolutely certain whether we go by 
Council Blufifs or Independence, Missouri. ^^ You will do 
well to address me one letter to Independence to the care of 
Eld. Hezekiah Johnson, and another to Council Bluffs, imme- 
diately on the reception of this. I suppose you are advised 
that Mr. Zuron [Jason] Lee^° has been at Washington the 



79 These were convenient points on the frontier for reaching the Platte River 
Valley, along which was the first part of the trail to Oregon. Independence had 
for some years been the rendezvous for those starting west on the Santa Fe trail, 
and in fact to all points in the Rocky Mountain region and beyond. Overton John- 
son and W. H. Winter, Route Across the Rocky Mountains, in Ore. Hist. Soc. 
Quar. VII :6S. Bancroft, Hist, of Arizona and New Mexico, 329. 

80 Jason Lee, prominent in the Methodist mission in Oregon, had been in 
the East since May, 1844, on business connected with Oregon and the mission. 
He died March 12, 1845. The Methodist Institute, the forerunner of Willamette 
University, was organized in February, 1842. Wm. D. Fenton and H. W. Scott, 
on Jason Lee, in Oregon Hist. Soc. Quar. VII :237, 239, 263. See also note 95. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 151 

past winter for the purpose of obtaining a grant of land in 
Oregon for an Oregon Institute — Methodist, of course. You 
will be let into the secret by turning to the President's mes- 
sage, with the accompanying documents, from page 492 to 
page 495 inclusive. Please be at the trouble to obtain it from 
some of the political printing offices in your city and read it. 
Then ask the Baptists of the United States if it is not time 
for Baptists to look to Oregon. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHK 



Rock Island, 111., March 31st, 1845. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

At the request of the members of the Board of the Iowa 
Convention, I now sit down in great haste and in the midst 
of confusion and a little anxiety to write you a private letter, 
presenting in brief the views of the members of the local 
Board in Davenport relative to the future operations of your 
Board in Iowa. We have been contemplating our field of 
labor with a prayerful interest, but we cannot do less than 
feel emotions of gratitude for the liberal patronage your 
Board has extended to it. Yet we feel convinced that all 
your funds are not the most judiciously appropriated. . . . 
We believe that the present year you will expend from $1300 
to $1700 in the bounds of our convention, including Rock 
Island Association, and yet numbers of the most important 
fields of labor are entirely unreached — Burlington, and at 
present Iowa City, Fort Madison and the entire county of 
Lee, with a population falling but little short of 10,000 souls. 
It is the decided opinion of the brethren of the Board that 
some changes ought to take place, so that these points may 
efifectually be reached and the cause sutsained in them. 

We think there is another defect, although we are far 
from charging your Board as being in any measure the 
cause, yet we think you may be the cause when the defect is 
pointed out. The appropriation of just $100 per annum to 
your missionaries irrespective of the place they occupy and 



152 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

other contingencies, with a few exceptions, we think, might 
be improved upon. We cannot find it in our hearts to dis- 
approve of the appointments of your missionaries except, 
perhaps, one or two instances. Yet we feel that more regard 
should in future be had to the position the missionary oc- 
cupies. Setting aside the abiHty to sustain the more im- 
portant fields, we know of instances where we think $50 
would afiford as much relief to a missionary's family as $100 
or $150 would, were the same man to occupy another and 
more important field. We then would say that we would 
recommend the appointment of missionaries with appro- 
priations varying in proportion to circumstances. If a min- 
ister is to sustain the cause in Burlington or Fort Madison 
or Galena or Bloomington, he must have more than $100 
from your Board, or we think little that is permanent will 
be effected and you will retain in the older states those very 
men for the want of whom the cause must suffer in our Ter- 
ritory. We think in a few cases appointments might be made 
with an appropriation of but $50 from your Board, and 
through that medium you might be enabled to do more to- 
wards fully sustaining men in more important points. Could 
you visit our prairie country and see its peculiarities, you 
would feel the force of these views. The great amount of 
labor must be performed in the populous points and from 
these reach less populous places. 

We hope at our next anniversary to efifect another object, 
to-wit : That the convention will be prepared to instruct her 
Board not to recommend the appointment of ministers to 
labor in the bounds of any church who will not pledge them- 
selves to raise, over and above the amount they pledge for 
the support of their minister direct, a sum equal to 25 cents 
for each member to aid the Society. 

We have now two applications pending which are not ap- 
proved, either for want of information relative to the appli- 
cant or from informality in the application, which may soon 
be in your hands. You understand this is a private letter and 
will not therefore publish it. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 153 

One word respecting myself. I received the commission 
more than two weeks since, but as yet the draft has not 
reached me, and tomorrow companies from this state will 
commence their journey and we have fixed on next Thurs- 
day to leave this place, but must wait till the draft reaches 
us. We have disposed of all our little possessions and all 
our furniture at about half their value to be ready and are 
still in suspense whether we shall be able to enter upon our 
anticipated field of labor. We sometimes fear the draft is in 
the bottom of the lake, or has miscarried. You may imagine 
with what anxiety we wait each returning mail and what are 
our feelings of disappointment as we return from the office 
unprovided for. We try to feel that the hand of the Lord is 
in all this. Sometimes I feel to say "Thy Will, O Lord, be 
done." Yet our constant prayer is, "If it please Thee O 
Lord, grant us the desire of our hearts and give us season- 
ably the means necessary to the prosecution of our journey." 
Should the next mail bring the draft, we must be delayed a 
few days beyond the appointed time. You have undoubtedly 
forwarded the draft before this. 

Yours truly, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — Perhaps it is not the will of the Lord that I should 
go; if so, I should submit, yet my heart is in the work and 
it will be time enough for me to learn that fact when I find 
the door is shut. Till then, I am bound to act up to a con- 
viction of duty, in view of the importance of the field before 
me. Should the draft go back to you with my name on its 
back, you will not pay it till you hear from me by letter, as 
I shall write you immediately on the receipt of the draft 
that you may learn the time of our departure. 

E. FISHER. 



Rock Island, April 5th, 1845. 
Dear Br. Brabrook: 

At the request of Dr. Witherwax and others, I take my 
pen to address you a line in great haste. The church in 



154 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Davenport are still destitute and perhaps have been rather 
difficult to please as a whole, yet they greatly need a minis- 
ter, and the Territory as much need a leading mind in the 
denomination who may exercise a father's care and kindness 
toward our esteemed young brethren in the ministry. Now 
I hardly know what to write you. I would not draw you 
away from a very responsible and important post to occupy 
a less important one. Yet, should you determine to settle as 
a pastor, I feel greatly desirous that an effectual door may 
be opened for you in Iowa. The church at Davenport and 
in this place cannot unite in the support of one man ; each 
would claim the services and residence of the minister. And 
the field is so wide in this vicinity that our brethren feel that 
they must have a man all the time on this side the river. 
Perhaps they judge correctly. I have no doubt from the ac- 
quaintance I have with the brethren in Davenport that ':hcy 
are prepared to give you a unanimous call to settle with 
them, provided they can raise the means for your support. 

The church in Bloomington will probably be left destitute 
before long, at longest in the month of June. It is the object 
of this letter to elicit from you a reply to a few questions. 
Are you determined to continue in your present agency? If 
not, would you regard it duty to settle in Iowa, provided you 
could be supported at a commanding point? Should the 
churches of Davenport and Bloomington unite in giving you 
a call, could you consent to supply the two churches thirty 
miles asunder, but with an excellent road on the bank of the 
river? Dr. Witherwax says their church would wait six 
months, if they knew you would settle with them at the ex- 
piration of that time. He also thinks your support might 
be raised by adopting that plan. Please write Dr. W. in 
answer to this as I shall probably be on our long journey 
before you will be able to have a letter reach this place. We 
are only waiting a draft from N. Y., which we are expecting 
every mail. Do not fail to attend our convention at Bloom- 
ington the first of June. May God direct you according to 
His holy will. Pray for us that our enterprise may be under 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 155 

the fostering care of the Almighty and be greatly blessed of 
the Lord. 

Yours in gospel bonds, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — Please stir up Brs. Bailey, Sherwood, Rogers and 
Crane to attend our convention. 

Done by request of those who love the cause of Christ in 
Iowa. 



Davenport, April 12th. 
Dear Br. : 

We are now here on our way for Oregon. We feel alone, 
as Br. Johnson does not go this spring in consequence of the 
ill health of his wife. But, if God is with us, all will be well. 
You see by Br. Witherwax's letter the state of feelings of 
this church in relation to you. I trust God will direct you. 
You will not fail to attend the convention at least. I failed 
of taking up the collection for the magazine, as I expected, 
through a variety of causes, but will leave the money with 
Dr. W. for the two volumes. I would be glad to have it 
hereafter sent to me to Oregon, if you can direct ; if not, it 
must be discontinued at present. Should you finally think 
it your duty to come to this Territory, perhaps you will do 
well not to expect anything positively from Bloomington. 

Yours truly, 
EZRA FISHER. 

P. S. — The brethren here wish to have you come to this 
place and devote your labors entirely to this place and the 
immediate vicinity. 

Yours, E. FISHER. 
Address on back : 

Elder Brabrook, 

Upper Alton, 
111. 



156 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Rock Island, 111., April 11th, 1845. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

Yours of March 29th came to hand the last mail. I had 
made arrangements with Br. E. F. Calkins to advance the 
funds on the drafts and consequently we were almost ready 
for our long and laborious journey. Our clothing and pro- 
visions are all loaded and we expect to cross the river early 
in the morning. I am almost worn down by the fatigue of 
preparation, but trust with common blessings to improve 
when once on our journey. We hope to be able to reach 
Independence before the last company leaves for Oregon.^^ 

I will make the report up to the present from March the 
14th in brief. I have preached eleven sermons. Spent most 
of my time in preparation for my journey. Delivered one 
public address at the request of the citizens of Davenport on 
the subject "Agricultural and Commercial and Moral Pros- 
pects of Oregon." Attended six prayer and two conference 
meetings. Visited six families. Attended Sabbath school 
twice and addressed the school once. Received three dollars 
towards my salary. All the remaining, I am pained to say, 
my press of business obliges me to leave unattended to. I 
regret exceedingly tha't I should have been the cause of the 
slightest disquietude, either to yourself or [to] the Board. 
I trust I have the soul of a Christian and would not willingly 
wound the feelings of an enemy, much less those of the 
guardians of the cause of American Baptist missions. If I 
know my own heart, I have only sought explanations, and 
the farthest possible would I be from censuring either you 
or the Board. You say we do not find any memorandum of 
a letter of the 4th of Nov. I have a letter now in my hand 
dated the 4'th of Nov.. 1844. and in the one under date of 
Nov. 29 you state : "I wrote you on the 2d instant, etc." 
Now I think you may find your memorandum by referring 
to the 2nd of Nov. instead of the 4th. After leaving Syra- 
cuse, where I last parted with you personall3% I did not 



81 See note 78. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 157 

reach Iowa so soon by some weeks as I expected in conse- 
quence of the extremely bad traveling. Your appointment 
was here some time before my arrival. I consequently re- 
ported from the time I commenced labor in the Territory 
and not from the tmie of the date of the commission, and, 
when I received the commission of the 1st of May. I finished 
the six months' service before I commenced reporting under 
that commission, and I suppose there is the place where 
originated all our misunderstanding. I supposed my former 
reports had been acceptable, hence I supposed you would not 
expect a quarterly report before the 15th of March. Had I 
know'U your expectations, I should most cheerfully have re- 
ported the 1st of February. You sent me a draft of $41.67, 
yet, according to my calculation, but $31.70 would be my 
due up to the present date and but $29 up to the 1st of x\pril. 
As the expense of my outfit has been much greater than I 
expected and the sum I will have to take with me after the 
making of the outfit is so small, I concluded to order the 
whole paid and will be willing to make the deduction from 
the next appointment's salary, should your Board request it. 
I shall start from this place with about $240.00 and we shall 
be at about $50 charges in getting to Independence. In view 
of my pecuniary situation, the friends in this place gave me a 
collection for my personal benefit amounting to $8.70, after 
preaching a sermon on the subject of the Oregon Mission, 
and after a similar manner the people in Davenport raised 
me about $11.60, as a token of sympathy for me in the sac- 
rifice they regard me now making. I name this that you 
may see that our friends here approve of our undertaking 
and bid us God speed. I regret exceedingly that Br. Johnson 
will not go this year. 

Yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — I trust I shall soon have a fellow laborer and that T 

now have the prayers of all the members of the Board. T 

feel often greatly to distrust my adaptation to so important 

an enterprise, yet I trust God is my helper, and only through 



158 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

His strength shall I prove a blessing to the cause of our 
precious Redeemer. 

Yours, E. F. 



St. Joseph,^^ Missouri, on the East Bank of Missouri River, 

May 14, 1845. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

We left Rock Island on the 5th of April. Spent the Sab- 
bath in Davenport, where I preached twice. Were affection- 
ately received by the brethren, and on the 7th commenced 
our journey, after singing a missionary hymn and publicly 
commending ourselves and the mission we anticipate to the 
care of Him who rules the hearts of men, being accompanied 
on our way two miles by three brethren and seven miles 
by another. Rested and preached [on the Sabbaths] except 
the last, when we were obliged to pitch our tent on the pre- 
ceding evening two miles from timber in the midst of a 
broad prairie. Our journey has been fatiguing, yet on the 
whole our health has improved. We have now 14 wagons 
in company and suppose there are at least 50 behind ; yet, 
lest we may be disappointed in falling in with their com- 
pany, we have judged it prudent to move over into the In- 
dian territory immediately. And now, while I am writing 
in my tent, some of the teams are crossing the Missouri 
River. We find our route will be something more than 100 
miles nearer and, at the same time, impeded with less water 
courses than it would have been by Independence. There- 
fore I suppose I have failed of receiving an important letter 
from you. I trust, however, that you will forward me a let- 
ter to Oregon City, Oregon Territory, by ship, through the 
medium of the Methodist Mission Agency in your city, so 
that I may receive it on my arrival at that place. 

The spirit of immigration is great this year, yet it is im- 
practicable to tell exactly the number of souls which will 



82 St. Joseph and other points along the Missouri in this vicinity, such as 
Independence, Liberty and Westport, were frecpient points of rendezvous, as they 
were convenient places from which to start uji the Platte Valley, the emigrant 
route. See also note 79. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 1S9 

cross the mountains this summer.^-^ 200 wagons have already 
passed this place and the immediate vicinity, and probably 
twice that number have passed Independence. It is judged 
that from 5000 to 15,000 souls will pass the mountains this 
summer. Br. Johnson probably will not go this summer, yet I 
trust that he will next spring. If not, I think your Board 
will not delay to have a missionary ready next spring for 
Oregon. I am more and more convinced of the importance 
of the enterprise and desire to become more like our Divine 
Master in temper and activity in His cause. But God must 
bless, or all is in vain. The care of the camp at this par- 
ticular time urges brevity. When we arrive at Fort Laramie 
I will probably write you again. I hope to be able to keep 
a journal through my journey. 

Yours in great haste, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Indian Territory, Nemaha Agency, 25 miles west of St. 
Joseph, Mo., May 23. 1845. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

At the suggestion of Br. Johnson, I submit to you the pro- 
ceedings of the meeting of the New London Emigration 
Company for Oregon, of which Br. Johnson and myself, with 
our families, form a part. 

At a meeting of the emigrants convened at this place, on 
motion Elder E. Fisher was called to the chair and J. H. 
Rinearson was appointed secretary. 

On motion a committee of seven were appointed to draft 
a constitution and rules for the government of the compani- 
on their way to Oregon, to-wit : Ezra Fisher, A. Hackelman. 
Eckenburg. Knox. Gallaheir. Hezekiah Johnson ar.d ^Vm. 
Bruck. Adjourned to 2 o'clock P. M. 



83 The immigration to Oregon in 1845 was the largest uji to that time. F!an- 
croft says that it numbered about 3.000. Rancroft. Hist, of Ore. 1:508. .\bout ISO 
more went to California. Hancroft. Hist, of Cal. I\':^71. I'.ritisli officers in 
Oregon in 1845-1846 estimated the immigration at 2.000. Warre and Vavasour, ed. 
by J. Schafer, in Ore. Hist. See. Quar. X :50. 



160 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

2 o'clock P. M. company convened; the chairman called 
to order. The committee submitted the following constitu- 
tion and rules, which were unanimously adopted :^^ 

CONSTITUTION. 

Article 1st. This Company shall be called the New Lon- 
don Emigrating Company for Oregon. 

Art. 2d. All persons uniting with the company shall be 
bound by the regulations hereinafter provided. 

Art. 3d. All male members over the age of sixteen years 
shall have the right to vote in the business transactions of 
the company. 

Art. 4th. The officers of this company shall consist of a 
Captain, Lieutenant, Orderly Lieutenant, Sergeant of the 
Guard, Engineer and a Committee of Five, who shall be elect- 
ed each four weeks , except the Engineer and Sergeant of 
the Guard, who shall be appointed by the Captain. 

Art. 5th. Captain to maintain good order and strict dis- 
cipline and to enforce all rules adopted by this company. It 
shall be the duty of the Lieutenant to take charge of the cat- 
tle and to call out a sufficient number of men and boys not 
engaged in driving teams to drive and take care of the loose 
cattle, and he shall be subject to the order of the Captain. 
It shall be the duty of the Orderly Sergeant to keep a fair 
roll of the names of all the men subject to duty. It shall 
the duty of the Engineer to remove any obstruction in the 
road and select the most suitable places for encampment. 
It shall be the duty of the Committee to settle all matters 
of difference between two or more persons in said company, 
according to the evidence in the case. Any person or persons 
that may feel themselves aggrieved at the decision of the 
Committee shall have the right of appeal to the company, 
provided that parties in dispute shall not be allowed to vote, 



84 It was customary for the emigrant parties to adopt constitutions. One of 
the emigration of 1844," for instance, was published in the New York Herald in 
January. 184.S, and the author may have seen it. for the two constitutions resemble 
each other in many ways. Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. 111:407. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 161 

and a decision of a majority of the voters shall be final except 
in criminal cases, which shall require a vote of two-thirds. 

Art. 6th. Those who have loose cattle shall provide hands 
to drive in proportion to the number owned. 

Art. 7th. Any person attaching himself to his company 
shall be bound not to take more than one quart of ardent 
spirits to each person in his family, and in no case shall any 
individual let it be known to the Indians that there is any in 
the company ; and it shall be the duty of the Judicial Com- 
mittee to examine each wagon to see that this article is not 
violated. 

Art. 8th. When the company may have opportunity to 
hold religious assemblies, any person violating the rules of 
decorum or disturbing such worshiping congregation shall be 
taken into custody by the Judicial Committee and shall be 
dealt with according to its decision ; and it shall be the duty 
of the company to rest on each Sabbath, except in cases of 
emergency. 

Art. 9th. This constitution may be altered or amended at 
any regular meeting of the company by a vote of two-thirds 
of the legal voters. 

Br. Johnson and family are here and our company will 
move forward tomorrow. 

Our company consists of 50 wagons, 214 souls and about 
666 head of cattle. 275 wagons have already passed this 
point before us, and about 1000 souls. It is uncertain how 
many have left Independence. We have heard of one com- 
pany which left that place with 500 wagons and another 
which have left, the number not yet learned at this place. 

We have in our company 30 Baptist professors, including 
Br. Johnson's family and my own, 5 Methodists, 2 Presby- 
terians, 2 Cumberland Presbyterians, 5 Associate Reformed 
Presbyterians, 2 Seceders, 1 Anti-missionary Baptist, 1 
Campbellite Baptist and I Dunkard Baptist. 



162 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Last year an Elder Snelling from the Platte country moved 
to Oregon with a small organized Baptist church.^^ 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — Will you publish this entire in the Baptist Advo- 
cate? I suppose our company is the first that ever observed 
the Lord's day in crossing the Rocky Mountains. We feel 
that we need your prayers. 

The Indian Agent, Major Wm. P. Richardson, has rendered 
us every facility and has invited us to participate in the hos- 
pitality of his family. His wife is an excellent Methodist 
lady. We have been here one week. In about 150 miles we 
shall probably find a hard gravel road and short bufifalo grass, 
salt enough for our stock. You will probably hear from us 
when we reach Fort Laramie, 650 miles from this. 

Yours truly, 

EZRA FISHER. 

We are all in good health and the company in fine spirits. 
I spent last Sabbath with the Presbyterian Mission at this 
place and preached once, and, on Wednesday last, attended 
prayer meeting at this place and we had an affecting scene. 
I addressed the meeting a'bout twenty minutes. Mr. Hamil- 
ton, the superintendent, is a godly man. 



Fort Laramie,^^, Indian Territory, July 10, 1845. 
Dear Br. : 

By the grace of God we have been preserved through 
dangers and fatigues about 1000 miles on our journey and we 
are now in comfortable health, although Mrs. Fisher has had 
a slight attack of the fever, occasioned no doubt from expos- 
ure and excessive fatigues on the Platte River. The multi- 
plied labors of the camp and the great anxiety of the emi- 
grants to progress on their journey almost entirely preclude 



85 See note on letter of Jan. 10, 1845. This was either incorrect information, 
or the church disbanded on or before reaching Oregon, as the first Baptist church 
in Oregon was organized in May, 1844. The next two were organized in 1846. 

86 Fort Laramie was not the present city of Laramie, but was a fur traders' 
post on the south side of the Platte, near its junction with the Laramie fork. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 163 

the opportunity of performing anything like missionary labor 
on our way. In this respect we are somewhat disappointed, 
yet we hope to exert in some measure a restraint over them 
which will be salutary hereafter. When we left the Nimaha 
Agency, we hoped to be able to influence the company in 
which we then were to rest on the Lord's day, but we soon 
found that every circumstance was construed into a case of 
emergency, except those manifest providences in which it be- 
came impracticable to move. You have no conception of the 
influence such a journey exerts for the time being upon the 
character of moral, and even professedly Christian men. Ev- 
ery man's interest seems to conflict with that of his neighbor, 
and still they must live in a community to a certain extent. 
We have preached but three Sabbaths since we left the Ni- 
maha Agency, and been constrained, notwithstanding every 
remonstrance, to travel a few miles, sufficient to throw the 
camp in confusion every other Sabbath. But the days of 
this pilgrimage are comparatively short and we hope and 
trust the trials will the better fit us for faithfully serving our 
common Lord in the land to which we are directing our 
steps. May Almighty God grant us the desire of our hearts. 

Our roads since we crossed the Missouri River have been 
the best we ever saw in any country and at present our 
greatest fears are that the long season of drought will ren- 
der the feed so poor and scarce that our cattle will suffer. 
We have suffered but little for want of water as yet, and we 
are now approaching a region of springs and perpetual snow, 
so that we have but little to fear from that score. We expect 
it will be at least twelve or thirteen weeks more before we 
reach the field of our future labors, and we know not whether 
we shall be able to write you again till that time. I am now 
writing, seated on a buffalo robe in the open air under a 
scorching sun (I would suppose the thermometer would 
range between 86 and 96 degrees), with the bottom of a 
fallen wash tub in my lap for a table and in the midst of the 
confusion of the camp. You must therefore tax your pa- 
tience in deciphering these hieroglyphics. Our wagons are 



164 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

now undergoing repairs, liaving become shrunk almost be- 
yond your conception by protracted and excessive lieat from 
the sun and sand. Probably in two days we shall be on our 
line of march. As near as we can calculate, about 600 wagons 
are in advance of us and probably about 100 are behind us, 
and it will be almost a fair estimate to reckon 425 souls to 
every hundred wagons.^^ 

Yours in haste, 

EZRA FISHER. 
N. B. — Br. Johnson and family are with us and in good 
health. He requests me to say that, as he is preparing a let- 
ter for the Cross and Journal and his time is all employed 
in that and the multiplied cares of the camp, he cannot write 
at this time. He sends his respects to yourself and Board. 

Yours, E. F. 



Snake River, 7 miles above the Salmon Falls, Oregon Terri- 
tory, Sept. 12th, 1845. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

I this day am happy to meet Dr. White,^^ the Indian agent 
for Oregon, on his way to your city and Washington. It 
affords us peculiar pleasure to state to you and your Board 
that by the abounding grace of the All Wise God, Br. John- 
son, myself and our families have been preserved through a 
fatiguing journey of about 2000 miles by ox team and that 
we are now in health and within about 670 miles of our 
journey's end. The fatigues of our journey perpetually 
pressing upon us forbid our doing much directly by preach- 
ing the word of God, yet we hope soon to be placed where 
we may labor directly for the temporal and spiritual welfare 
of the new and rising colony with whom our interests are 
soon to be identified. We feel as much as ever interested 
in the enterprise and our hopes are as high, although we feel 



87 This estimate was apparently nearly correct. See note S3. 

S8 Elijah White, At. D., had arrived in Oregon in 1837 as a member of the 
Methodist mission. He was appointed United States sub-Indian agent for the 
Oregon Country in 1842. He was now on his way to Washington bearing to 
Congress a memorial of the Legislature of the Provisional '^)regon Government, 
and on business concerning his office. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. I-.l.'iS, 254, 481-6. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 165 

convinced that we will have to meet all the peculiarities of a 
new country. 

May God give us grace to acquit ourselves faithfully in 
His fear. Dr. White gives a flattering account of the col- 
ony, as you will learn by a personal interview with him, 
which you will doubtless have. I have but a moment's time 
to write, as our camps are on the eve of moving and Dr. 
W. is in the same condition. 

We hope to reach the place of our destination in about 8 
weeks, if God will give us a share in your petitions to the 
Father of all our blessings, that we may have grace to plant 
and water churches in the true apostolic spirit. 

I have not time to write to our relatives in the state of 
N. York. You will confer a favor on us and them, should 
you insert a note in the Baptist Register stating that we 
are all in health. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., February 26th. 1846. 
Dear Brother : 

After a protracted journey of more than seven and a half 
months and a distance of more than 2500 miles,^^ we now 
find ourselves situated in the lower part of Oregon in the 
midst of an extremely interesting country, but in all the 
rudeness of nature. Consequently you will not be disap- 
pointed when you learn the true state of society as it ex- 



89 A quotation from a letter of a fellow immigrant of the same train as the 
author throws an interesting sidelight on the trip. 

"Another trial that one has often to meet on the way is disregard for the 
Sabbath. I suppose there was about as much contention on that subject in the 
company in which I came as any other. A good part of the company cared nothing 
about that, or any other religious question, and if it suited them they wished to 
travel on that day as well as any other. And even then when they did stop on 
tiiat day it was only to mend their wagons or wash their clothes. I do not say 
that all did this, for there were some of our company that were devotedly pious. 
There were three ministers in the company ; one a Seceder minister from about 
Burlington [this was T. J. Kendall, D. D.]. The other two were Baptist ministers, 
one from Iowa, the otlier from Ilock Island County, Illinois, whose name was 
Fisher. . . . He manifested more of the true spirit of Christ while on the road 
than any other man with whom I was acquainted. . . . The company in which I 
came traveled, maybe, half of the Sabbaths on the way. We had preaching most 
of the davs on which we stopped." — I,etters of Andrew Rodgers, Jr.. April 22, 1846, 
quoted in" "The United Presbyterian" (Vol. 46, No. 2), Jan. 13, 1898, p. 10. 



166 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ists in this place and the surrounding country. I arrived 
with my family at the Tuallity Plains^^ about the 6th of 
December last, after traveling" in the rains about 15 days 
and having occasional rains for the preceding month. When 
you learn that I walked further than would cover the whole 
distance of the journey, bearing my full proportional part 
of the services of the company, and that neither myself nor 
family laid off our clothing more than four or five nights 
during the whole journey, always sleeping in our tent on 
the ground, you will not be surprised that we were worn 
down with protracted fatigue and care. But a merciful 
Providence has sustained us all the way through the wilder- 
ness and blessed us with more than a usual measure of 
health and strength. Yet the last month I found my strength 
gradually yielding. On our arrival, although we were greet- 
ed with kindness by the few brethren we met, we did not 
find our lot cast in the midst of wealthy churches who were 
participating in the fruits of centuries of labours in civiliza- 
tion and Christianity. We were, however, kindly received 
into the cabin of Br. Lenox,^^ where we have resided up to 
the present, and, although his house contains but one room, 
about 18 feet by 22, without a single pane of glass, and his fam- 
ily consists of 13 souls, besides, almost every night, one, two 
or three travelers, and my family consists of six souls, we have 
passed the winter thus far quite as pleasantly as you would 
imagine in view^ of the circumstances, and probably more so 
than a large portion of the last emigration, although per- 
haps a little more straitened for room. 

With the exception of the last two weeks, our health, as 
a family, has been very good since our arrival. . . . The 



90 There is much obscurity surrounding the origin of the names Tualatin and 
Tuallaty. George H. Himes, from his investigations, believes Tualatin probably to 
be an Indian name meaning "a land without trees," describing the natural prairies of 
what is now Washington County; and Tuallaty (the accent on the penult) to be an 
Indian name meaning "a lazy man," describing the sluggish river. If this is true, 
Tualatin was the name applied to the plains, and Tuallaty to the river; but a con- 
fusion of the two early took place which ultimately resulted in applying fualatm 
to both river and prairie. The plains had begun to be settled at least as early as 
1840 Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:244. Thev had at this time about 150 families, 
Canadians, half-breeds and Americans. Warre and Vavasour, ed. by J. Schafer, Ore. 
Hist. Soc. Quar. X:75 

91 See note 73. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 167 

amount of ministerial labor that I have been able to per- 
form since our arrival would seem to a minister in the east- 
ern or middle states to be trifling indeed. But were you in 
an entirely new country not reclaimed from the savages, with 
only one settler on each mile square and that only in the 
open plains, in the dead of winter, with the rains almost daily 
falling till all the small streams are swollen to swimming, and 
numbers of bridges, of which there are as yet but few, swept 
away, with all the cares of a family to be met, after eight 
months' consumption of provisions and clothing, where sup- 
plies are to be procured at distances of from ten to thirty 
miles, 52 it will appear less strange. I have visited but little, 
have preached every Sabbath but three, and then my place 
was supplied by others, except once when journeying, the 
rains and the distance from neighbors prevented. Yet I am 
almost daily having intercourse with citizens from various 
parts of the country and, through that means, hope the way 
is opening for more extended labors in the opening of the 
spring, which is now beginning to make its appearance. I 
have established an evening spelling school for children of 
the family and one of the neighbors and a Bible class on Sab- 
bath evenings in the same families. About twelve children 
attend regularly. . . . 

As it relates to my views of the importance of the field 
we are now just entering, I am by no means discouraged, 
but on the whole have a growing conviction that I never in 
my life Avas placed in a more responsible relation ; yet at the 
same time I feel borne down with the surrounding and op- 
ponent obstacles to extended usefulness. If you will not re- 
gard me desponding, I will name a few of them: First, we 
have but one church in Oregon^^ and only two of the mem- 



92 The nearest points where supplies could be purchased were Oregon City 
and Portland. Pettygrove had established a store in the latter place in 1845 and 
Liovejoy had cut out a road to the Tualatin plains. They may also have been able 
to get a few supplies at Linnton. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:9. 

Oregon City was begun in 1829-30 by Dr. McLoughlin and by 184S-6 had 300 
inhabitants, two church buildings, about 100 dwelling houses and stores, a grist 
mill, and several sawmills. Warre and Vavasour, ed. by J. Schafer in Ore. Hist. 
See. Quar. X:47-51. 

93 The West Union Church on Tualatin Plains. See note 73. 



168 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

bers living within 25 miles of the place, so that all efficiency 
by church organization is lost ; and those that have emigrated 
the past season are generally poor and but just able to pro- 
vide for their immediate wants. The forty or fifty Baptist 
members are scattered over an extent of country, perhaps 90 
miles in length and 50 in breadth. Again, we are destitute 
of juvenile books and periodicals and books peculiar to the 
wants of our denomination. And then, the settlements are 
fast extending south and west and northwest to points which 
soon must rise to very considerable importance, and here are 
Br. Johnson and myself, with exhausted funds and beyond 
the reach of your aid for more than a year (and we must 
necessarily apply ourselves in part to procuring the means 
of present sustenance), with the labor of five or six men be- 
fore us in the ministry, and that, too, at a time which most 
of all is the most favorable to give permanence and character 
to a rising nation. Do you ask how our means are exhausted 
so soon? We answer, that when we arrived at The Dalles 
exhausted of provisions, we paid $8 per hundred for flour 
and $6 for beef; at the Cascades, from $6 to $10 for flour and 
$6 for beef, and on our arrival in the Plains we found flour 
worth from $4 to $5, and beef $6 and pork $10, fresh ; sale 
shoes, coarse, $3 per pair and custom work $6; axes, $4 each; 
nails, 16c per pound; coiYee, SSy^c per pound; common calico, 
from 25c to 62i/4c per yard ; a common cast bake kettle, with 
a lid, from $3 to $6, when to be had at any price, and most 
of our wearing apparel is somewhat in the same proportion ; 
school books cannot be had at any price.^* Now, could our 
able brethren and pious, too, see and feel as we do the great 
reluctance with which we must leave the work in part to 
serve the present urgent wants of our families (and these 
wants must be still more urgent before we can get any re- 
mittances from your Board) would they not esteem it a 
pleasure to make up a box of common clothing, or clothes, 
laid in by their families, which will cover nakedness and ren- 



94 The first school books to be brought into Oregon in any quantity were by 
Dr. G. H. Atkinson in 1848.— Geo. H. Himes. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 169 

der the appearance of our children in the house of worship 
decent in Oregon? We are sure we do not covet the softest 
raiment for ourselves or families, but we do greatly desire 
to be able to give ourselves wholly to the work, and some- 
thing in this way might lighten the expense of our support 
and add greatly to our usefulness. 

The subject of education, too, allow me to say, rests with 
great weight on my mind. Judging charitably, with all the 
laudable efforts of our citizens, it is beyond their power to 
do much by way of educating their children while they have 
so much to provide for present animal wants, and are placed 
beyond the reach of books. Besides this, the greatest efforts 
made are those by Romans^s and the Methodists. Now could 
we obtain a few school books so as to enable us to operate 
a common school, they would be of great service. I hope 
to be able to organize two or three churches, by the aid of 
Br. Snelling, and to explore generally the settlements above 
and visit the mouth of the Columbia and Puget Sound dur- 
ing the coming dry season, should Providence give us and 
our families life and health. We are often strengthened and 
encouraged by the reflection that we have the prayers and 
sympathies of many, very many, personal and dear Christian 
friends, as well as of many whom we shall never know till 
we see as we are seen and bow together around the throne 
of our exalted Redeemer. 

Yours, E. F 
Received July 22. 



Oregon City, Feb 27th. 1846. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

The haste in which I write and the circumstances will be 
the only apology for the want of order in which the subjects 

95 A Catholic school for boys, "St. Joseph's College," was opened in 1843 at 
St. Paul, on French Prairie. The Sisters of Notre Dame opened a school for girls 
on French Prairie in 1844 and in Oregon City in 1848. E. V. O'Hara, Pioneer 
Catholic History of Oregon, pp. 123-125. 

The boys' school at St. Paul's was closed in 1849, the girls' school in 1852 
and the school at Oregon City in 1853. Ibid. pp. 129, 130. 

The Methodist '"Oregon Institute" (the precursor of Willamette University) was 
organized in 1842. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:201, 203. 



170 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

are thrown together. What, however, you pubHsh, you will 
cull out and arrange, as I would, had I paper and time before 
the return party leave this place. 

I was upon the subject of education last night and I can- 
not leave it till I have still further urged its claim upon our 
churches at home. And here I will say that, with few excep- 
tions, we have had very few schools in Oregon and most of 
those of a character such as might reasonably be expected in 
so new and remote a settlement. Our Methodist friends have 
a school in operation about 60 miles above this, in which 
are taught the branches usually taught in common schools in 
the States, with a male teacher part of the year, a female 
teacher through the year, about 40 scholars, and a spacious 
edifice completed. About 30 miles above this, the Roman 
Catholics are making a strong elifort and this year they are 
erecting a large edifice to be devoted to the purposes of edu- 
cation and have a school in operation,^^ and I am credibly in- 
formed that they contemplate a similar institution on the 
Cowlitz. In both of these they propose to teach all the 
branches essential to a thorough education, without directly 
inculcating their peculiar religious tenets. The influence of 
this sect is becoming strong in this territory. I am informed 
by indubitable authority that there is not a place in the whole 
territory where the higher branches can be acquired except 
by a private teacher or in a Catholic school. We then need 
extremely a series of elementary books, geography, grammar, 
arithmetic, natural philosophy and other school books, but 
we have not the means of compensation except by exchanges. 
They would be purchased were they here, if wheat would 
buy them. Can we not have them? Again we are in perish- 
ing need of juvenile reading, such as the publications of the 
Am. Bap. Pub. Soc, and the religious periodicals of our de- 
nomination, both for young and old. We are almost in a 
heathen land so far as relates to the circulation of religious 



96 In March, 1846, Vavasour described the Roman Catholic Mission on French 
Prairie, as having "several large wooden bviildings. two churches, dwelling houses 
and a nunnery." On the Cowlitz he mentioned the Catholic church as being near 
the settlement of about 19 families. Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. X:91, 93. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 171 

intelligence, while there is a readiness and eagerness on the 
part of citizens generally to read anything late from the 
States. Some of our numerous brethren in New York and 
Boston could easily send to Br. Johnson and myself the files 
of their own religious periodicals, after reading, without in- 
creasing their expenses. I know of no country where relig- 
ious tracts would be read with more interest than in Oregon. 
I know Br. J. M. Peck to be emphatically a western pioneer, 
and through his influence and yours, may we not expect im- 
mediately an appropriation of the Am. Bap. Pub. Soc.'s pub- 
lications for Oregon, a proportion of them advocating our 
denominational views and exhit)iting the true character of 
popery? Should a box of clothing be made up for the relief 
of our families, allow me to state that common calico, shirt- 
ing, any woolen clothing, either for men or women, or chil- 
dren between the size of infancy and manhood, shoes, half 
hose, or any articles of bedclothes would be very acceptable ; 
our hats and shoes are literally worn out and Br. Johnson's 
boys have been barefooted, and little girls, too, all winter, 
and mine are candidates for the same treatment unless we 
get returns from New York or supply them and varied other 
demands by the labor of our hands. 

Should your Board continue us in their employ, I shall 
need a large portion of the appropriation in clothing and 
books purchased by you in New York as I may designate in 
my reports, one of which I shall make and forward by the 
next return party after this, which will leave in April or 
]\ray. I had forgotten to mention in the catalogue of our 
wants writing paper, an article not now in this city. Please 
send me a few reams and charge it to me from the next ap- 
propriation. 

Hitherto I have but barely alluded to the field before us. 
The present population from the States is estimated at about 
five or six thousand souls, and, when once settled in their 
homes, will extend up the river about 120 miles above this 
and up the varied tributaries, and from this downward to the 



172 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

lower mouth of the Willamette.^'" At the mouth of the Co- 
lumbia a strong settlement is being made, and another on 
Pugette Sound. Our country below the Cascade Mountains 
is not extensive; yet, as far as I have seen, I think the fer- 
tility of the soil generally will exceed the description given 
by Lieutenant Wilkes and Mr. Townsend.^^ 

The truth is, it is in a great measure an unexplored coun- 
try, except by trappers who have probably but little interest 
in judging of the fertility of the soil and still less in publish- 
ing it to the world. I have traveled down the north bank 
of the Columbia on foot from The Dalles to Vancouver ; from 
Vancouver to the Tuallity Plains; through the Plains four 
times ; from the Plains through the Chahalum Valley, across 
the Yam Hill River and up the Willamette Valley across the 
Rickreall about half the distance to the Luckymac,^^ making a 
distance from the Plains of about 80 miles ; from the Tuallity 
Plains to this place twice, a distance of about 28 miles, and 
I think I hazard nothing when I give it as my opinion that its 
fertility is scarcely excelled by the same extent in the Missis- 
sippi Valley. In wheat it far exceeds in yield any part of 
the United States. The crop never fails by winter killing, by 
blight or by insects, and produces from ten to more than 
fifty bushels to the acre of the best wheat I ever saw. All 
the small grains and vegetables do well as far as tried and 
turnips excel anything I ever saw. The climate is remark- 
ably mild during the winter, although rainy, and is said to be 
extremely fine during the spring, summer and autumn. It 
is ascertained that there is a large extent of country north of 



97 This estimate of the American population of Oregon seems about correct. 
See F. G. Young, The Oregon Trail, Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. 1 :370. 

The history o fthe settlement at Astoria is well known. The Methodists oc- 
cupied Clatsop plains in 1840. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:185, 188. It was rather 
optimistic, however, to call the settlements here and on Puget Sound "strong." The 
American settlement at the latter point had only just begun, and was very small. 
Bancroft, Hist, of Wash., Idaho and Montana, pp. 1-5. 

98 Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander of the U. S. Exploring Expedition 
of 1838-42, was in Oregon in 1841. His "Narrative" was published in five volumes 
in Philadelphia in 1844. A "Syno;isis of the U. S. Exploring Expeditiori during the 
years 1838-41," appeared earlier. Bancroft, Hist, of N. W. Coast, pp. 670-683. 

John K. Townsend was a naturalist who was in Oregon in 1834-6. His "Nar- 
rative of a Tourney Across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River" appeared 
in Philadelphia in 1839. Ibid. p. 577. 

99 Probably the Luckiamute, a stream in Polk County. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 173 

the mouth of the Columbia reaching to the Sound and back 
perhaps more than a hundred miles, much of which is open 
and fertile, susceptible of immediate settlement. The coun- 
try of the Umpqua, the Rogue and the Clamet^oo is represent- 
ed as remarkably fertile and somewhat extensive. New towns 
must soon rise up on the river, both above and below us. At 
the mouth of the Columbia and on the Puget Sound there 
must soon spring up small cities whose extent and import- 
ance will in a great measure be determined by the intelli- 
gence, virtue and enterprise of the people of the tributary 
country. Our climate, our soil, our timber and our water 
power conspire to render our resources, when developed, 
great, for the extent of the territory, beyond that of any coun- 
try I ever saw. But with all these facilities, we greatly need 
a few discreet young brethren, with perhaps families, who 
love our Lord and His cause, who can teach and operate 
upon the mind of the rising generation in bringing them to 
adopt correct views in all the social and moral relations of 
man. We also greatly need brethren, with families, who 
know how to feel and act for the wants of the church, with 
whom ministers may counsel and execute. 

In truth the door is fast opening for business men on the 
coast as well as in the interior, and the facilities for emigrat- 
ing from the eastern states are about as good, if not better, 
by water than by land. Five hundred dollars invested in 
clothing or mechanics' tools in New York or Boston is better 
than the same amount in cattle and wagons in Missouri, and 
then emigrants might sail in the fall and arrive in the spring 
in time to make a crop. 

You can forward any papers or boxes from New York or 
Boston or other port by any ship bound to the mouth of the 
Columbia. The firm of Cushing, Newbury Port, will prob- 



100 The Klamath. For the different spellings of the name, see Frederick V. 
Holman, History of the Counties of Oregon, in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. XI :SS. Clamet 
was the spelling given in Elijah White's "Ten Years in Oregon." 



174 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ably send out one vessel each year.^''^ The firm of A. G. & 
A. W. Benson, No. 19 Old slip, New York, will probably 
send one vessel each six months. Should you send by any 
vessel direct to either Br. Johnson or myself, Oregon City, 
Oregon Territory, to the care of E. O. Hall, Financier of the 
A. B. C. F. M., Honolulu, Oahu Island, and pay the freight, 
he will forward such packages or boxes to us. 

Yours, 
EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — It is due to Br. Johnson to state that his family has 
suffered much with the camp fever'^^ since their arrival in 
this place, but through a kind Providence their lives are all 
spared and their health is gradually returning. Sister J. is 
beginning to take the charge of the family. We design fixing 
our families near this place the coming season, sustaining 
preaching regularly each Sabbath, traveling as much as we 
can and searching out the scattered sheep. 



Tuallity Plains, Tuallity Co., Oregon, April 17, 1846. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

I have just learned that the return party to the States will 
leave Oregon City on Monday. It is now late at night, and 
my last chance for sending is early tomorrow morning. I can 
therefore do nothing more than sketch a few lines in the 
greatest haste. The mercies of God are still passing before 
us, giving us life and health as a family. We find presented 
almost daily opportunities of contributing to the formation of 
the moral character of the people of our Territory. Yet we 
find everything so dissimilar to anything we ever experienced 
that we often feel placed almost beyond religious privileges 
as you are wont to enjoy them in the States. 



101 F. W. Pettygrove, at Oregon City, had come out as agent of A. G. and 
A. W. Benson in 1842. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:422. The firm of John and Caleb 
Cushing of Newburyport had sent a ship to Oregon City as early as 1839 (it arrived 
in 1840) and in 1846 another of their ships appeared in Oregon. H. W. Scott (ed). 
Hist, of Portland, p. 86. 

102 Camp fever was much like dysentery or typhoid fever. It was sometimes 
called mountain fever. — George H. Himes. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 175 

The population as yet must, from the nature of the case, be 
very sparse and, as the settlements are somewhat remote 
from each other, it renders the labors of a missionary diffi- 
cult, situated as we are at this time many thousands of miles 
from home and with exhausted funds. We cannot reason- 
ably expect any supplies from your Board for at least twelve 
months. With these obstacles before us we do not despair, 
but must be pained while we are obliged to minister to our 
temporal wants temporarily, and hence limit greatly our field 
of labour. I have pretty nearly concluded to teach a school 
a few months, as soon as we get settled, as the most conveni- 
ent method of promoting the moral and religious condition 
of the people. I have just returned from the mouth of the 
Columbia River. I find it an interesting part of the country, 
and to all probability, should the emigration continue as we 
have reason to anticipate, the commercial point for the Will- 
amette Valley and a great portion of the Territory must be 
located either where Astoria once stood or between that and 
the mouth of the river. I found about thirty or forty log 
cabins in this vicinity occupied by families and bachelors. 
On the south side of the river about the mouth is a tract of 
rich land large enough for a small county, susceptible of cul- 
tivation, but mostly timbered. That portion now occupied 
is mostly plains, and portions of the timbered land would be 
more easily cleared and put under cultivation than most of 
the timbered land in New York.^^^ ^^g climate is remark- 
ably salubrious. Nothing but the small number of people 
and the distance of this point from the present populous part 
of Oregon will prevent me from fixing my family in this 
vicinity and labouring from this point. Even now my con- 
victions are so strong of the relative importance of this point 
and of the probable future character of its population, that 
I may in a few months deem it my duty to take my family to 
that place. 



103 The history of Astoria is too well Icnown to need repetition here. The 
Clatsop Plains were apparently first settled by whites in 1840 when the Methodist 
Mission established a station there. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:185. 

This station was ordered sold out in 1844. Ibid. 1:221. 



176 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

I still preach on Sabbaths and visit only as I travel from 
place to place. 

Your Board may be desirous of knowing what will be nec- 
essary to enable us to devote ourselves to the ministry. I 
think that after fixing our location we can support the family, 
should the Board see fit to make an appropriation of $150 
or $200 the first year, and hope we may be blessed with favor 
of the people so that we can afterward live on a less sum. 
Should your Board make an appropriation for another year, 
we wish you to put us up a box of the following articles and 
pay for the same from the appropriation : 1 pair no. 9 thick 
calf-skin boots ; 1 pair of calf-skin shoes no. 4, women's ; 2 
pair of no. 3 shoes, boys' ; 2 pair of children's shoes for a girl 
7 years old, and 2 pair for a girl 4 years ; 2 bolts of common 
calico, dark coloured, worth 12 or 15 cents per yd; 10 yards 
of Kentucky janes and 4 yards of black cassimere; 20 yards 
of woolen linsey, plaid, for children's dresses ; 25 spools of 
common sewing thread; 8 pounds of cotton batting; 1 cast 
bake kettle, with lid, that will hold about ten quarts ; 1 large 
octavo Bible and five or six spelling books. We are in an en- 
tirely new country and have little or no crockery or cooking 
utensils at any price. You will probably get the box on 
board Mr. Benson's ship bound for the mouth of the Colum- 
bia ; if not, direct to me as one of your missionaries, Oregon 
City, Oregon Territory, to the care of E. A. Hall, Financier 
of the A. B. C. F. M. at Honolulu, Oahu, one of the Sand- 
wich Islands, and it will probably come safe. 

Yours truly, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Aug. 19, 1846. 



Oregon City, Oregon Territory, Aug. 15th, 1846. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

I am at this time on a visit to this place with Mrs. Fisher 
and to spend the Sabbath, and have just learned that Mr. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 177 

Stark, supercargo of the Tulon/°^ leaves this place on Mon- 
day morning, and I have but an hour to write and that too 
in a visiting circle. I have many things to write, which I 
intend to do before winter, but must dispense with order 
at this time. We are all in tolerable health and presume Br. 
Johnson's family are, although we have not yet seen them 
since coming in town. You can have but little conception of 
our feelings at the present. We find Oregon emphatically 
presenting a most interesting field for missionary labor, but 
quite dissimilar to any we have formerly occupied, and our 
circumstances widely different. I wish you to be assured 
that we are not at all inclined to complain of the allotments 
of Providence. They are all in mercy. And it becomes us to 
rejoice that we may endure hardness for the cause of Christ 
so long as duty and necessity demand it. But rest assured, 
dear brother, I tell you the sentiments of my inmost soul 
when I say I have no desire to become secular when I see a 
civilized nation (shall I say) bursting into existence on the 
dark side of the globe, with a character entirely unformed 
and less elevated than that of Iowa or Missouri, and removed 
thousands of miles from the moral and religious influence of 
old and established institutions of morality and religion. 
Your means of communication are easy and direct throughout 
the entire states and territories drained by the waters of the 
Mississippi, and even through Texas ; but here we are, sepa- 
rated by great mountain and desert barriers, or a voyage 
of more than 20,000 miles by sea, surrounded by heathen near 
at hand, by Romans all along the southern coast line, with 
the isles of the sea waiting for the law of God and some in 
the very act of receiving it. What can be done must be done 
or our opportunities for doing as a denomination will be 
largely lost. A country is now settled, at favoured points, 
about as large as half the state of Illinois, and we are expect- 
ing large accessions the coming fall. Then the most import- 



104 The "Toulon," Captain Xathaniel Crosby, first carpe to Oregon from New 
York in 1845. For a number of years beginning with 1846, it made trips from 
Oregon to the Hawaiian Islands. Benjamin Stark, Jr., was supercargo. Bancroft, 
Hist, of Ore. 11:16, 48. 



178 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ant points will be seized upon with great eagerness, if it is 
true, as we fondly hope, that the notice bilP^^ is passed by 
both branches of our national legislature and become a law. 
We see Romanism taking root in our soil and special effort 
being made to secure the influence of the leading men in our 
colony and to establish schools for the education of our 
children and youth. We have already three churches, if they 
may be called churches, '°^ and members favourably located 
to organize two or three more ; besides, we must soon look 
after more important interests than any already brought into 
existence, or entirely leave the seaboard to others. My heart 
bleeds at this view of things, while I find myself confined 
in school as the best way temporarily to exert a limited in- 
fluence while I provide my family with the present neces- 
saries of life. With this state of things before us, we have 
but three Baptist ministers in good standing in the 
churches, ^°^ and the other two are more confined than myself. 
We know your Board does not expect we will exhaust our 
physical powers for the bread that perishes, and, were you 
here to view things as they are, you would lift up your voice 
in the churches till we were liberated from the necessity of 
serving tables, or say, We will leave you to your ways, but 
appoint more faithful laborers in this vineyard of our com- 
mon Lord. You know what we have to expect from the first 
emigrants from Missouri and Iowa. It is too much to expect 
to be thrown into the bosom of affectionate churches who 
sympathize with the faithful ministry and study to make his 
labors delightful. ^°^ Men do not rejoice at the sound of the 
gospel even here ; but we feel strongly assured that the time 
is not far distant when all the discouragements peculiar to 



105 The bill provided for twelve months' notice to Great Britain of the termi- 
nation of the joint occupancy of the Oregon agreement of 1818. The news of the 
passage of the notice bill did not reach Oregon until a number of days after this 
letter was written. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. I :589. 

106 These three Baptist churches were at West Union (Tualatin Plains'), La 
Creole (Polk County), and Yamhill ( South Yamhill). Mattoon, Bapt. Annals of 
Ore. 1:1-4. 

107 The three Baptist ministers were Rev. Vincent Snelling, Rev. Hezekiah 
Johnson, and the author. Mattoon, Bapt. Annals of Ore. 1 :43-50. 

108 Baptists from these western states and territories were not yet accustomed 
to supporting the ministry of the church. 



REVEREND EZ^RA FISHER. 179 

a new country and an extremely fluctuating population will 
give place to the order and efficiency which the gospel of 
Christ so forcibly inculcates. At present I am teaching 
school, as I have intimated, in Tuallity Plains, 25 or 26 miles 
N. W. from this place, but greatly fear that my lungs will 
not allow me to continue in that employment. I preach and 
superintend a Sabbath school on the Sabbath, or preach and 
visit abroad Saturdays and Sabbaths. Two weeks today and 
tomorrow I assisted in organizing a small church near the 
mouth of the Yam Hill River,'^^ and on Sabbath presented to 
the public the peculiarities of our denomination in a sermon 
of about an hour and at the close baptized a brother of some 
talent who wished to prepare for the ministry. The three 
churches now organized are most favorably located, being 
organized so that their future place of worship must un- 
avoidably be at the county seats of three important counties 
on the Willamette River. But our brethren are in a new 
country and have everything to do to render their families 
comfortable, and have not been formerly trained to the prin- 
ciples so happily carried out by our Pilgrim fathers in the 
settlements of Plymouth and Boston. I preach every Sab- 
bath. We have a Sabbath school, in connection with other 
denominations, and Bible class consisting in all of about 2S 
scholars and 5 teachers ; ten of the children are of Baptist 
families, and three teachers. I superintend the school when 
at home. Four days in June I attended a camp-meeting of 
the Congregational Church in the upper plain ten miles from 
my present residence and participated as much as my 
strength would admit. Our labors were blessed, and it is 
hoped that some ten or twelve souls were truly convert- 
ed. .. . 

Tell our brethren that tracts and Sunday school books are 
greatly needed, and we feel that we cannot be denied this 
request as soon as a package can be made up and sent. Our 
brethren will not forget to send us files of religious periodi- 



109 This was the church at South Yamhill, twelve miles or so from the mouth 
of the river. Mattoon fails to mention the author's part in this organization, giving 
only the names of Snelling and Johnson. Mattoon, Bapt Annals of Ore. 1:5. 



180 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

cals. We have now been cut off from all the blessings of re- 
ligious periodicals and literally shut out of the religious 
world for 17 months except that we find occasionally an 
angel visitor of this kind in a Pedo-baptist paper. We trust 
it is our love for the cause of Christ in Oregon which has led 
us to forego, with our young families, all these privileges. 
Shall our wants meet with a response from the hearts and 
hands of our brethren in the Atlantic states? We maintain 
a weekly prayer meeting and Mrs. Fisher and our little 
daughter, with two other young females not yet baptized, 
sustain a weekly prayer meeting. I visit but little as a min- 
ister, but embrace every opportunity I can for that purpose. 
I must close this for want of paper and time, but hope I 
shall be able to fill another sheet before the Tulon leaves the 
mouth of the Columbia. If possible, we must have two good 
Baptist teachers sent out from east of the Alleghany Moun- 
tains immediately and I think they will find support. Re- 
member us affectionately to our dear brethren in New York. 

Yours truly, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Feb. 5, 1847. 



Tuallity Plains, Tuallity County, Oregon Ter., 

Aug. 19th, 1846. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

Since last writing, learning that the Tulon may be delayed 
a few days at the mouth of the Columbia and being about 
to visit Clatsop and the coast immediately north of the 
mouth of the Columbia, I hope to be in time to forward you 
another sheet. Consequently, I hasten to communicate an- 
other letter. We returned from Oregon City on the 17th. 
Found our family in usual health. . . .As it relates to the 
character of our Baptist brethren with whom we have to 
co-operate, they are mostly from the upper part of Missouri, 
with a very considerable number of Baptists from Iowa. 
. . . We have some few who have been accustomed to work 
in prayer meetings and Sabbath schools and would like to 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 181 

see the ministry devoted to their appropriate calling, but as 
yet very little can be realized by way of ministerial support. 
Yet I think the time is near at hand when the brethren will 
take a gospel view of the subject and carry out the gospel 
plan. We greatly need a few working brethren located at 
favoured points for business and influence in Oregon. It is 
not difficult to see where those points will be. Such breth- 
ren as could engage in farming, lumbering, mechanic arts, 
such as are indispensable to a new country, and in the sal- 
mon fisheries will find that a small capital judiciously in- 
vested, with industry, would soon enable them to rise to 
competency and probably to affluence. I have never seen a 
country where, at so early a period in its history, so many 
avenues are opened to reward the industrious as are found 
in Oregon. . . . We greatly need a few efficient brethren 
who have formed their habits east of the Alleghany Range. 
It is as easy for brethren to come by water direct to the 
mouth of the Columbia, to Vancouvers Island or Pugets 
Sound, which are certainly among the most favored points 
in our country, as for the inhabitants of Missouri to cross 
the Rocky Mountains by ox teams. The time has already 
come when money or merchandise will buy neat stock at no 
very extravagant prices in New York or Massachusetts. 
Whoever can reach the Sandwich Islands will be able soon 
to find a passage to the mouth of the Columbia. 

I wrote you in my last that we greatly needed two good 
teachers. My reasons are these: 1. I think they will un- 
doubtedly be able to sustain themselves. 2. The Romans 
are now very industrious in attempting to occupy every im- 
portant point with a school. I was credibly informed that 
a proposition was recently made by a priest to the proprie- 
tors of Portland, the highest point which merchant vessels 
reach on the Willamette, to build a church and establish a 
permanent school in the place, if the proprietors would give 
the site and pledge their attendance on the services of the 



182 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Roman Church. ^^° A somewhat similar profifer has been 
made to some of the settlers of the Clatsop Plains south of 
the mouth of the Columbia, if my informant, a resident of 
said Plains, is to be relied upon, and I think him a man of 
veracity. 

I have taught one quarter and probably I shall teach an- 
other, commencing about the first of October, if my lungs 
will allow me to teach and preach ; if not, I must abandon 
teaching and find some other employment sufficient to sus- 
tain my family till relief comes from your Board, should it 
decide that a mission must be sustained here. Our Pedo- 
baptist friends have very freely expressed to me the opinion 
that I ought to have gone to Oregon City. But as the cir- 
cumstances are and Br. Johnson seems desirous of remaining, 
I have for months been decidedly of the opinion that I should 
hold myself in readiness to make my home at or near the 
mouth of the Columbia, as soon as our brethren in this re- 
gion will give their consent and Providence opens the door. 
I rejoice to be able to say that quite unexpectedly to me our 
brethren are now adopting my views, and the probability is 
that by next summer settlements will become sufficiently 
extended on the coast to justify my removal to that point. 
. . . We need men in Oregon who desire to magnify the 
office of the ministry and love it more than all pursuits. We 
need more ministers, but we shall doubtless be better able 
to say what the character and qualifications should be after 
the arrival of the forth-coming emigration ; volunteer min- 
isters will probably come then and we shall then probably 
have an opportunity of writing you by way of the Sandwich 
Islands. We shall probably need one more at least in the 
Willamette Valley, one at Vancouver and one in the neigh- 
borhood of Pugets Sound before you can commission and 
send them out. The coast and Vancouver will probably be 
peopled with an enterprising and intelligent people. 



110 There seems to be no other record of this offer. If it was ever made it 
was not accepted. The first Catholic chapel was not erected in Portland until 
1851, and not until 1859 was the first Catholic school opened in Portland. Hist, 
of Portland, Ore., ed. by H. W. Scott, pp. 348, 394. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 183 

I think Br. Johnson and myself will need $200 cash another 
year to enable us to devote ourselves to the work, and, 
should we place ourselves so as to stop our rents and keep 
a little stock, perhaps we can live with that by subjecting 
our families to taking charge of our little temporals. Prob- 
ably one half of that in such goods as families need in wear- 
ing apparel and articles of furniture would be as convenient 
for us as the money, and, by this means, your Board may 
sustain its missionaries by the assistance of friends who 
would cheerfully contribute wearing apparel when money is 
out of the question. 

Received Feb. 5, 1847. 



Astoria, Clatsop County, Oregon Ter., Jan 4th, 1847. 
Dear Brother Hill: 

Being in daily expectation that the ship Tulon will leave 
the mouth of the river for the Sandwich Islands, I embrace 
this as the only opportunity I shall have till spring to address 
you by letter, and this will not reach you for eight or ten 
months, if ever. 

Through the tender mercies of God, we are all in good 
health, except that I am confined to the house with a wound 
received from an axe in my foot last week. The wound, 
however, is doing well and will probably heal in two or 
three weeks. I will here remark that we probably have one 
of the most salubrious as well as mild climates in the world. 
But I have taken my pen for other purposes than to give a 
description of climate and soil and the beauties of the scen- 
ery. We have chosen this as our field of labor, should God 
graciously please to spare our unprofitable lives, although 
at present the population of the place and vicinity is small. 
This I have done from a strong conviction that the coast 
must soon become the most important part of the countr\' 
and that, too, probably as soon as we shall be so situated as 
to be able to do much permanently for the cause. We feel 
a strong assurance that we shall soon enjoy a stability of 



184 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

government which will give an impulse to emigration and 
commerce, and we trust that in the emigration we shall fmd 
some who care for the cause of Christianity and will co- 
operate with us for the promotion of the Kingdom of Christ 
on these shores. We have three Baptist sisters about ten 
miles from us on the Clatsop Plains, who have moved there 
since we came to this place, with whom we had a slight ac- 
quaintance in the States.^ '^ We are in expectation of other 
members in the spring or summer, and hope by that time to 
constitute a feeble church in this county. If we shall be able 
to do this, and to awaken in the community an interest in 
substituting religious order on the Sabbath for visiting, hunt- 
ing and transacting worldly business, we shall feel that we 
have not lived in vain in Oregon. We feel the strongest 
conviction that ours is a very important position, although 
at present we labour under the greatest inconveniences of 
any of your missionaries. Your Board is my witness that 
I have not in years past made the privations of a missionary 
the burden of my communications with you. The duty I 
owe to Him who bought us with His own blood and ever 
lives to intercede in our behalf, as well as the relation I sus- 
tain to the Home Board of Missions and to our new and 
promising Territory, demands of me, however humiliating 
the task, a disclosure of facts. Before I proceed, I will state 
that to me, and I doubt not to the other two Baptist minis- 
ters labouring in Oregon, the work of the ministry is desir- 
able above all other works, and I know of no field for which 
I have any desire to abandon Oregon. But what can a man 
do without his bread and his tools? To be sure, under the 
most adverse circumstances, something may be done for God 
every day, but we know it is not God's plan that Zion's 
teachers shall be removed into a corner, but that they shall 
be brought into sight and hearing, that she may hear the 
word : "This is the way, walk ye in it." We are all, as 
Baptist ministers, driven to the necessity of going to secular 



111 These were Mrs. Robinson and her two daughters, Mrs. Motley and Mrs. 
Thompson. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 185 

pursuits to give our families food, and but very insufficient 
raiment. 

As a people, we are a colony removed far from all civiliza- 
tion and commerce, except what the small surplus products 
of our country attract. The consequence is a monopoly in 
commerce very oppressive to the community. Our settlers 
are generally industrious, and, should the Government grant 
them their lands, they are laying the foundation for wealth 
despite the temporary monopoly in trade with which they are 
oppressed. ^^- As before stated, we have very few Baptist 
brethren who have been accustomed to see a minister sus- 
tained by the church, and those few are scattered so as to 
prevent anything like a systematic effort to aid in the sup- 
port of the ministry. They love the gospel sound and delight 
in its ordinances, but ministers must travel far from settle- 
ment to settlement to preach. This creates a large tax on 
the time of the man who must leave the word of God and 
serve tables. Added to this, the rainy season five or six 
months in the year renders the roads in this new country 
very difficult to travel, and, when we travel by water, we 
have to go in open boats and sleep in the open air, perhaps 
in wet blankets, after rowing all day in the rain. These diffi- 
culties might and would be overcome were our hands liber- 
ated and our family cares abated. With the improvement of 
the country, the difficulties of traveling will soon be over- 
come, and are now probably as few as might reasonably be 
expected. . . . Our white American population now num- 
bers nine or ten thousand souls scattered over a territory 
more than two hundred miles from Pugets Sound and this 
place to the headwaters of the Willamette, and is aided in 
science, religion and morals by only one printing press, and 
that issues a semi-monthly half sheet. ^i^. Its proprietors 



112 Probably a reference to the Hudson Bay Company, which did most cff the 
shipping at this time. — George H. Himes. 

113 This was the Oregon Spectator which first appeared Feb. 5, 1846, under the 
editorship of W. G. T'Vault. H. 8. Lyman, Hist, of Ore. IV:279. The spelling 
book was published Feb. 1, 1847. There were 800 copies, none of which are known 
to be extant in their complete form. The book was an abridgment of Webster's 
Elementary Spelling Book, about two-thirds the size of the original. Geo. H. Himes, 
Hist, of the Press in Oregon, in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. 111:347. 



186 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

have lately resolved to strike off 200 copies of Webster's ele- 
mentary spelling-book somewhat abridged. You can form 
some estimate of our poverty and want. Probably not one 
family in three in the Territory has a spelling-book. I have 
no doubt men would gladly have paid one dollar per copy for 
spelling books for their children in the school which I taught 
last summer, but there was not a spelling-book at any price. 
We have a few Sunday school books sent out from New 
York. I suppose by Messrs. Benson and Co., or by benevo- 
lent friends, which have been of great value to the children 
and youth as far as enjoyed ; and we have a few volumes of 
the publications of the American Tract Society and some 
tracts sent to Rev. Mr. Griffen, a Congregationalist.^^^. 

Our Methodist brethren are doing something towards sup- 
plying some of the children with juvenile books, their Sun- 
day School Advocate, their hymn books, and some Bibles 
and Testaments; but all this is a very small fraction of what 
is greatly needed. I have not seen a Baptist periodical from 
the States for more than 20 months. I have omitted to men- 
tion that the country is almost destitute of all suitable ele- 
mentary school-books and juvenile reading. It would do 
your heart good to see the eagerness with which a periodical, 
a tract or Sunday school book is seized upon and read by a 
large portion of our citizens. For example, when our eldest 
daughter of fifteen years, being engaged to teach a quarter, 
was sent for,^!^ ^ request came for hymn-books and any other 
suitable books so that they could have a Sunday school dur- 
ing her stay, and I had nothing but a few copies of the Di- 
vine Songs and a few tracts to send. Cannot our request be 
responded to, so that as missionaries we may be supplied 
with suitable tracts and juvenile books of the American Bap- 
tist Publication Society, with a fair proportion of the former 
exposing the evils of Romanism, and others vindicating our 
denominational peculiarities; also some Bibles and Testa- 



114 This was probably Rev. J. S. Griffin, who came to Oregon in 1839 (Ban- 
croft, Hist, of Ore. 1:238), sent by the North Litchfield Association of Connecticut. 

115 This school was at Skipanon, near Warrenton, in Clatsop County. — Geo. H. 
Himes. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 187 

ments? I know there would be an effort made, if our breth- 
ren in the States were to feel our wants as we daily feel 
them. Imagine yourself and family of children surrounded 
by heathen and daily under their influence, and at the same 
time Romanism uniting its influence with heathenism to 
bring into disrepute the simplicity of the gospel in a new 
and isolated republic rising on the western borders of Ameri- 
ca. Would you not plead for help? 

Our brethren will not forget to send us files of some of 
the religious periodicals, as well as the annual reports of the 
missionary and other benevolent societies. So far as these 
auxiliaries are concerned, we famish in a dry and barren land. 
When I left the Western states I sold and gave away a 
large portion of the few books which composed my library 
because they were too heavy to transport across the Rocky 
Mountains, so that now when I would consult a commentary 
or some of the standard writers of the last and present cen- 
tury on the great truths of the gospel, I seriously feel my 
need. My library consists principally of Mosheim's Church 
History, Home's Introduction, Buck's Theological Diction- 
ary, Butterworth's Concordance, a Greek Testament and Lex- 
icon and Wayland's Moral Science. One of our ministering 
brethren on the Willamette has Fuller's Works and Mc- 
Knight on the Epistles. As ministers we greatly need a few 
books, and, could any valuable ones be sent, they would be 
thankfully received. De Aubin's History of the Reforma- 
tion^'^ would probably be an invaluable work here. We have 
consumed most of our available means, and find ourselves 
placed in the strait of involving ourselves in debt or provid- 
ing with our hands the bare necessaries of life, not knowing 
how soon we shall get any communications from you. I have 
received a few presents from two of our brethren here and a 
few from some friend, amounting perhaps in all to thirty dol- 
lars. 

We are living, and have lived ever since we came to the' 
country, except for about five weeks, in a rude log cabin 



116 Not De Aubin, but D'Aubigne (1794-1872). 



188 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

without a single pane of glass. Our furniture consists of 
three chairs, three stools, a small pine table about two feet 
by three, two old trunks which have traveled with us about 
20 years, and a very few cooking utensils which we have 
brought with us or obtained at exorbitant prices. We have 
two tea cups and four saucers ; more are not to be obtained 
in the country at any price. Most articles of clothing and 
furniture, when they can be obtained, are three or four times 
the price they are in the States. We have neither fire shovel, 
tongs nor andirons, but a common barn shovel. We often 
think, if we had a few of the most commonly indispensable 
articles of household furniture and could provide our chil- 
dren with the most coarse but comfortable apparel so that 
we could meet the many pressing and important calls for 
ministerial labor all over the country in all the varied rela- 
tions of our calling, we should be happy. 

Our Territory is needing the labors of at least five or six 
devoted Baptist missionaries. The time has come when we, 
as a denomination, must have men in the field, or other men 
will gather the harvest. Our Methodist brethren are now 
sustaining five or six missionaries in the settlements, and at 
this very moment, had we the men and means, our denomina- 
tional views are as favorably received as any other. Brother 
Snelling is a worthy brother, and would gladly wear himself 
out in the ministry, but for the pressing cares of his family. 
Brother Johnson is doing what he can at Oregon City and 
vicinity. My labors will be principally confined to this coun- 
ty, unless we are so liberated from secular cares as to enable 
me to spend a portion of the time in traveling through the 
settlements now forming on the Chehalis and at Puget 
Sound, '^'' as well as the upper settlements. Should the set- 
tlement of the Oregon question be w^hat we anticipate, we 
shall greatly need a missionary stationed at Puget Sound be- 
fore you can commission a suitable man and send him to the 
field. And should Upper California remain under the United 



117 See note 220 for the early settlements on Puget Sound. The upper settle- 
ments were probably those in the Willamette V^alley. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 189 

States government, a missionary will be greatly needed at 
San Francisco Bay immediately upon the settlement of the 
Mexican War. It is my deliberate opinion that missionaries 
in whom your Board can confide should be appointed and 
sustained till by God's blessing an interest shall be awakened 
sufficient to sustain itself, and can afiford assistance to the 
surrounding country. This whole country and Upper Cali- 
fornia are emphatically missionary grounds, and our relation 
to the whole Pacific Coast and the half of the globe in our 
front demands prompt and faithful action. If our position 
excites so much interest in the political and commercial 
world, ought not the churches to turn the eye in this direc- 
tion and ask: Have we no interest in all these movements? 
Whatever God has in store for our majestic River and our 
spacious and safe harbors on the Pacific, one thing is now re- 
duced to a demonstration : We must become a part of the 
great North American Republic. It remains for the Chris- 
tian churches of that Republic to say whether our territory 
shall prove a blessing or a sore curse to the nation. Shall 
the needed help be denied us? As a people, we are in the 
most helpless infancy; the power of the gospel of our ever 
blessed Saviour must be exerted to bind this legion and 
drive it into our mighty Pacific, or we shall be abandoned, 
the prey of the worst of spirits and the basest of passions. 
Dear brother, it is far beyond the power of language to de- 
scribe the blessings of the gospel. While we. almost isolated 
and faint, pray and labor and look with longing eyes toward 
the parent land, shall we not see this bow of promise hang- 
ing over our eastern skies : "The Lord will send deliverance 
out of Zion"? No doubt the time is near at hand when the 
facilities of communication will be greatly multiplied and a 
direct mail route will enable us to correspond directly two or 
three times a year, ^^^ and vessels will be monthly leaving 
this place for the States and bearing cargoes directly from 
the States in return. We wait v.'ith patience for these 



lis For a time in 1846 direct mail service had been established with Weston, 
Mo., at the rate of fiftv cents a sinele sheet, but this was discontinvied after nine 
months. Ceo. H. Himes, History of the Press in Ore., Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. 111:343. 



190 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

changes. We feel that we are passing through a crisis in the 
history of the country, and ask God for grace that we may 
be brought through without repining at His providences. 
We feel a strong conviction that the time is near at hand 
when God will enlarge Zion on these shores, and we shall 
enjoy all the blessings of civilization and Christianity for 
ourselves and our children. 

I preach every Sabbath, although the number living in our 
place is as yet very small. I shall probably divide my labors 
between this place and Clatsop Plains, in the opening of the 
spring. I have spent most of my time the last two months 
in building a small frame house, and have it now almost en- 
closed, and shall probably soon move into it.'^^ We shall 
then open a small Sunday school of the few children we have 
in the place. We feel pretty strong convictions that we shall 
make this region the field of our future labors, should God 
permit, and this become the commercial point on this river, 
which is very probable. We are waiting with anxiety, how- 
ever, to learn what the Government will do for this country; 
you probably know at this time, or will before the rising of 
congress. ^-° I have written you five or six times since our 
arrival in the country, and two or three times on our way, 
but have not yet had a single line from you. Will not a box 
of clothing be sent to aid Brother Johnson and myself in 
clothing our families? Second-handed clothing and coarse, 
too, will be very valuable to us. You can have no conception 
of how thankfully it would be received, or of the difficulty 
of obtaining clothing in this country. I know positively that 
our families would rejoice exceedingly, if they had the old 
clothes which are regarded useless by hundreds of our breth- 
ren in the old States. 

I have repeated the request for books and clothing through 
fear that any former letters may have never reached you. I 



119 This house was used as a post office by John M. Shively, who was one 
of the first two U. S. postmasters appointed for Oregon (1847). Bancroft, Hist. 
of Ore. 1:614. A picture of the house was in the Oregon Daily Journal, Dec. 31, 
1909. 

120 It may be that the author had not yet heard of the final settlement of the 
Oregon boundary, which was made in the summer of 1846. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 191 

know it will afford many a sister pleasure to collect a few 
comforts for those of us who are laboring in these ends of the 
earth. We make not these appeals because we think we 
could not meet the wants of our families, should we give our- 
selves entirely to secular pursuits. But this we cannot do. 
God will have His ministers feel a necessity laid upon them 
and a woe too, if they preach not the gospel. We very much 
expect to hear from you in the spring, so that we can feel 
relieved in spending the dry season strictly as missionaries. 
We ought to visit every large settlement and hold a meeting 
of two, three or more days, and gather up the scattered sheep 
and feed the lambs. But I must desist. My heart is full of 
the wants of our country. May God give us grace to do His 
will. You can send any boxes or letters on board any vessel 
that passes the Sandwich Islands, directing all such packages 
to me at this place to the care of E. O. Hall, Financier of the 
A. B. C. F. Missions at Honolulu, Oahu or Wahoo. 

Your unworthy brother and fellow laborer in the gospel 
field, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — Let us have an interest in your prayers and the 
prayers of all those who mourn over the desolations of sin, 
that the richest blessings of the gospel may be poured out 
upon Oregon. 

Received Julv 13. 



Astoria, Oregon Territory, April 2nd, 1847. 
Dear Brother Hill : 

I wrote you three sheets by the Tulon in January, making 
known in some measure the wants of our country west of 
the mountains, and directed it by way of the Islands, but 
after writing. Captain Crosby determined to take a cargo of 
flour to the American squadron at San Francisco Bay.^-^ The 
package may be a year in reaching you, and it may be that 



121 This was. of course, the Pacific squadron which had helped in the American 
occupation of Califorriia in this and the preceding year. Bancroft, Hist, of Cal. 
V, passim. Captain N. Crosby was prominent in the history of early Oregon ship- 
ping. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:26. 



192 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

he made over his letters for the States to the war ship which 
was dispatched to take Captain Howison to the States to 
account for the loss of the Schooner Shark. ^" It is possible 
that you will receive it in two or three months, but, through 
fear of a long delay, I shall repeat some of our obstacles in 
the promotion of the cause of Christ in Oregon. By the 
abounding grace of God we are alive and in good bodily 
health ; yet our remote situation from the seat of operations 
of American churches, together with our temporal embarrass- 
ments, and the inconvenience of reaching the remote settle- 
ments, both as it relates to the time employed and the ex- 
pense of traveling, has compelled me to confine my labors 
to the few people in Clatsop County. The winter has been 
extremely severe, and to human appearances Providence has 
frowned upon my attempts temporal. 

We moved to this place last fall, as probably possessing 
the most favorable indications of future usefulness, and with 
pretty strong encouragement that we should be joined by 
other Baptist friends this spring. But the severity of the 
winter, which has been destructive to cattle in this place and 
to the wheat already in the barns, probably determined our 
Baptist friends otherwise. My cattle, which were more than 
twenty head in the fall, are now reduced to two, and I feel 
myself compelled to remove to Clatsop Plains on the coast 
immediately south of the mouth of the Columbia, but cut oflf 
from this place by Young's Bay, three miles in width, as the 
most probable place of sustaining my family by my own 
hands and at the same time sustaining a small congregation ; 
our daughter Lucy Jane Gray can have a small school part 
of the time, and a small Sabbath school may probably be 
sustained during the year. In the meantime we hope that 
the day is not far distant when we shall have such relief sent 
us from your Board as will enable me to reach more remote 
portions of the settlements and devote my whole time to the 
appropriate duties of a gospel minister. 

122 The "Shark" was wrecked at the mouth of the Columbia, Oct. 10, 1846. 
Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:587. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 193 

In the abstract, I think this county presents as much pres- 
ent prospect of permanent usefulness as any part of the 
country, if we except the immediate vicinity of Oregon City 
and the country accessible from that point. We feel a strong 
confidence that the first national work by way of fortification 
and the facilitation of navigation must be done at this great 
outlet of travel and commerce, and but a few months will be 
sufficient to decide this.^^-' I cannot therefore think of leav- 
ing this point, unless the seat of commerce should be fixed 
at another point and Providence should plainly indicate a 
more advantageous situation. We have three Baptist sisters 
[married] in Clatsop Plains and there is a general desire 
manifested that we shall remove there for the present. I 
learned by Captain Kilborn of the Brig Henry that he had 
sent a letter for me to the Willamette Falls (Oregon City). 
I suppose it is from your pen, but have not had the satisfac- 
tion of seeing it. Rest assured we wait with great anxiety 
some communication from you. At present we have here 
only two American families besides my own, and a few 
bachelors, and besides the Hudson Bay Company's servants, 
and it is not probable towns will improve much in Oregon 
beyond the absolute necessities in business transactions, 
should our Government make grants of lands to the first 
settlers and require each family to reside for a term of years 
on his land to perfect his title. 

I have received no direct communication from Brother 
Johnson since I left Tuality Plains, but occasionally hear 
from him. I can assure you that to all human appearances 
our usefulness would be increased ten fold were we only 
placed in such circumstances as Ave were in the Great West- 
ern Valley, and yet our labors as ministers are as greatly 
needed as they ever were in the JNIississippi Valley. O, how 
blighting to the Christian graces is this secularizing of the 
ministry ! Surely no minister who values holiness of heart 



123 The first defensive works at the mouth of the Columbia were begun in 
1863. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:510. No work on the channel was done until 
much later. 



194 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

and desires the enlargement of the Redeemer's Kingdom on 
the borders of idolatry and Romanism, can do otherwise than 
exercise the deepest regret at the necessity of consuming his 
precious time and attention in providing but partially for 
animals wants. Such at present must unavoidably be our 
condition unless aid come from some quarter. Our few 
churches are but partially organized and need frequent visit- 
ing and instructing, and to see practically demonstrated the 
utility of a devoted ministry, that they may appreciate it 
and put forth laudable efforts to sustain it. We feel a strong 
confidence that all necessary relief would be forthcoming 
with many and prevailing prayers, could our liberal brethren 
stand by and see us as we go to our daily labor with almost 
all the spiritual needs in their pressing importance urging 
themselves upon us, yet neglected. I do trust that another 
summer will not leave Brother Johnson and myself in a still 
more straitened condition than we were the past, but this 
must be the case with myself, unless some kind providence 
shall bring relief from your Board. Were we placed in other 
circumstances, where religious knowledge is generally dif- 
fused through the press and adapted to all, from the child 
of two years to the hoary-headed saint and the veteran sin- 
ner, I might be justified in being less importunate. . . . 
but where all depends upon the efificiency of the ministry 
to bring before the infant churches the doctrines, the ordi- 
nances, the precepts and examples of the gospel, we ought 
to be given wholly to the work. We covet not this spiritual 
exile because it is to be preferred to all those pleasing asso- 
ciations which daily bring to your door the triumphs of the 
gospel from the four quarters of the globe, and that habitual 
enjoyment of elevated Christian society which is to be en- 
joyed in all the older parts of our country. But we have 
chosen our position and chose the sacrifice with the hope 
that under the blessing of God and by the aid of those more 
highly blessed with temporal and spiritual gifts, we might 
become both His servants and their servants in shedding 
abroad God's gifts in these benighted ends of the earth. It 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 195 

will be two years the twelfth of the present month since we 
left the field of our former labors. With it we cheerfully re- 
linquished the prospect of enjoying those almost inestimable 
privileges of religious publications of all description, as we 
supposed, for one year, hoping that a few months after our 
arrival we should occasionally be greeted by those welcome 
visitors. But Alas ! the Mexican war and the infrequency of 
arrivals by water direct from our eastern ports has held us 
in banishment up to this present. When I look to the people 
and see them left in ignorance of all the great religious move- 
ments in the world, except for a few packages sent to the 
Methodist and Presbyterian missions, my feelings are often 
left to wander between despair and that indifiference occa- 
sioned by the care and fatigue incident to meeting our tem- 
poral needs. Our whole country is oppressed by an excessive 
monopoly of our merchants, so that most of the people are 
unable to meet the pressing wants of their families. If they 
could sit down at night as they come in from their daily 
labor, take up a religious periodical and read their half-clad 
families some interesting accounts of the triumphs of grace 
over depravity instead of meditating and teaching the prin- 
ciple of revenge, how would the family circle be cheered and 
the lovv'ering cloud of our Western solitude be dissipated ! 
The question is settled that Oregon is destined to be num- 
bered among the states of our great American Republic ; the 
scenes of our early sufferings and privations will soon be 
known only as they are engraved on the memory of the suf- 
ferers, or recorded on the pages of history. A brighter day 
is before us and we fancy that we already descry the first 
dawning light breaking over the tops of the eastern moun- 
tains. W^e must look to the older and more gifted states to 
aid in giving us a religious as well as a political and com- 
mercial character. Will not our Baptist churches aid in this 
work? Romanism is making strong attempts at planting 
deep its root in Oregon soil and availing itself of every inef- 
ficient efifort of Protestantism to bring into disrepute the vital 
godliness of both it and its ministry. So long as our min- 



196 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

isters are unsustained, the priests herald the stereotyped re- 
proach through the community, both savage and civilized : 
"These men are not ministers. See, they work and trade 
and live like other men. We are the founders of schools 
and are always ready to minister to your afiFlictions and care 
for your souls." 

Can there be some method devised whereby we can have 
forwarded several numl^ers of some good religious periodicals 
of our own denomination, and some of the publications of the 
A. B. Publication Society adapted to Sunday schools and to 
vindicating our own denominational peculiarities and breath- 
ing a spirit of devotion and Christian philanthropy? Books 
of all kinds are eagerly sought for and Sunday schools can 
easily be sustained where ten or twelve children can be found 
sufficiently contiguous. I have several times written relative 
to the best and cheapest way of sustaining your missionaries 
in Oregon. Such is the feeble and scattered condition of the 
settlements that your missionaries must be sustained princi- 
pally from your Board, or they must sustain themselves. Yet 
there is great hope that a few years will change the aspect of 
things in this respect. When the people once see the happy 
effects of a devoted ministry, they will cheerfully contribute 
to its support, and be blessed in so doing. When the time 
comes that a fair competition in trade takes the place of op- 
pressive monopoly, industry will probably be as amply re- 
warded in this as in any other part of the nation, and we all 
hope that day is near. None but those who have experienced 
it can tell the inconveniences and privations of a new coun- 
try so far removed from civilization. But really our early 
settlers have performed their part nobly, and are still con- 
tending undismayed with obstacles which would be regarded 
almost unsurmountable in the old states. On arriving here 
the few people of this country were all poor and for the past 
three years they have brought almost all their breadstuff 
125 miles in canoes and open boats, making a trip in 10 or 
15 days and camping out in the open air through all their 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 197 

journey ;^^^ these journeys are often performed in the dead 
of winter while the rain is falling every day; all groceries 
and store goods are obtained in this way, except such as 
are purchased off of ships. The people have just put in 
operation a mill sufiticient to meet the home demand, and the 
days of privation are fast passing by. Now the actual ex- 
pense of living in Oregon, with half the comforts of life, is 
twice as great as it is in the western states, and how to 
meet these expenses of your missionaries is the question to 
be considered. Articles of clothing are exceedingly difficult 
to be obtained here. Sisters of the churches could make up 
clothing or send the articles unmade, or even half-worn 
clothing, such as is laid by, and would contribute largely to 
our wants. They would probably thus provide for us with 
great cheerfulness ; at the same time it would not at all di- 
minish the annual cash contributions. You can have no con- 
ception of the manner in which we are clad in our ordinary 
business. We are still wearing old clothes which we had 
laid aside as unfit for use in the AV'estern states, and have 
purchased but a few of the most common articles, and those 
of the coarse and substantial kind, when they could be ob- 
tained. We still prefer to practice this kind of self-denial 
to the abandonment of our enterprise, while we have the 
hope left that we may be made instrumental in laying the 
foundation of the cause of Christian civilization where it is 
so much needed. We wish not to make the gospel an item 
of merchandise, and I think both Brother Johnson and my- 
self are willing to practice the most rigid economy for the 
sake of carrying out the great object of our mission. As to 
the amount necessary to sustain our families, you will be 
able to judge by referring to the Methodist Board to find 
what it costs them to sustain the families of their ministers 
in this field. It may be proper to write a few lines relative 
to the sufferings of the late emigration, which in far too 
manv cases have been great, and in some cases perhaps with- 



124 These were probably brought from Vancouver or Oregon City, and possibly 
also from Portland. 



198 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

out parallel in American histor}', and I fear it will be read 
to the prejudice of future emigration. I believe all the errii- 
grants who followed the usual roads to Oregon and Cali- 
fornia arrived in good season and with good health and no 
serious loss. It was only those companies who were either 
desirous of finding a new and better route, or were induced 
to follow imprudent and self-interested guides, who reaped so 
bitterly disappointment and disaster and even starvation. 
The greatest sufferers were probably a party who, before 
crossing the Sierra Nevada range of mountains, left Mr. 
Hastings who was conducting a part of the California emi- 
gration. After travelling till all hopes of reaching the lower 
company failed, a party of fifteen of the strongest, in at- 
tempting to cross the snowy mountains, were compelled to 
leave their animals and travel on foot almost destitute of 
clothing and food. Such was their extremity before reaching 
San Francisco Bay that eight perished, and the survivors 
subsisted on the flesh and blood of those that perished, some 
upon their own relatives. Five of the seven who reached the 
settlements were women, and when they arrived they were 
reduced to a perfect state of nudity. May these sufferings 
prove an effectual warning to all successive emigrants to fol- 
low none but explored and opened roads. '-^ A practical 
wagon road is now opened from the States to the settle- 
ments on the Willamette River, terminating at Oregon City, 
where plenty of provisions can always be had at the ordi- 
nary prices of the country. We trust we shall soon have 
regular mails, at least quarterly, from this to the States ; and 
then we can rely with some certainty on our packages being 
safely carried to the place of destination. I have written you 
every opportunity since I arrived in the Territor}^ but as 
yet have had no letter from you. 



I25 There is also probably a reference here to the party which in 1846 came 
to Oregon via the southern route from Ft. Hall. This party suffered great hard- 
ships while getting into the Willamette Valley from the Rogue and the Umpqua 
Valleys. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. I :556-565. 

For the hardships of the California partv, which are here not exaggerated, see 
Bancroft, Hist, of Cali. V:529-542. The author mentions only the party called 
the "forlorn hope." but a much larger party suffered somewhat similarly. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 199 

You may judge by this that we are greatly discouraged, 
but you may rely upon it that we entered this field expecting 
to meet many privations. Our greatest embarrassment is 
that we are doing so little for Him who has bought us with 
His blood and we trust clothed us with His righteousness. 
As ever yours, EZRA FISHER. 

Received Sept. 6, 1847. 



Clatsop Plains, Clatsop County, Ore., July 23. 1847. 
Dear Brother Hill: 

Your favors of October 26th and November 13th were re- 
ceived June the 20th, and read with great pleasure, they be- 
ing the first communications I have received from your pen 
since I left Rock Island. 111., although I have written about 
half a quire of paper to you. One letter, however, of yours 
reached Oregon City; but our letters are all forwarded by 
private conveyance, and it was lost. It was the one which 
came on board the Brig Henry, Captain Kilburn, from New- 
berryport.^"^^ The pamphlets and papers, which were sent 
on board that ship, were also lost. But Brother Johnson 
received his letter sent at the same time. The boxes of 
goods which you forwardea on board the Bark Whiton, Cap- 
tain Geleston,^27 ^yjij probably be here in two or three weeks, 
and will be very gladly received, as we are brought to rather 
straitened circumstances. In view of the small number of 
inhabitants at Astoria and the difficulty of sustaining my 
family there, we moved to these plains (Clatsop) about the 
first of May last. This I did by the advice of our Baptist 
friends in the Territory. Yet here we are compelled to 
devote most of the week providing the bread that perishes. 
Yet I think our position is as favorable to the promotion of 
the cause of truth as any I could have taken in Oregon after 
the one which Brother Johnson occupies. The future com- 
merce of the country must pass within a few miles of us. 



126 This was William K. Kilborn. The "Henrv" is a familiar figure in Oregon 
history of this time. See Bancroft, Hist of Ore. 1:414, 679-80; 11:24, 43, 43. 

127 Galston. not Geleston. For the return voyage of the "Whiton" see Ban- 
croft, Hist, of Ore. 1 :620. 



200 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

and we feel strongly confident that a port of entry will be 
established near the mouth of this majestic Columbia, and 
other public works must necessarily go forward in our 
county as soon as we have a territorial government organized 
by the United States Congress. At present we have but a 
small population in this county. In view of the time being 
so near at hand when this must probably become a com- 
manding point, I think you and the Board would approve of 
my course, were you in Oregon to see and judge for me. 
I am building a temporary log cabin this summer, which, to- 
gether with raising my provisions, confines me at home. Yet 
I intend by the help of God to spend four or five weeks in 
the Willamette Valley the coming fall. When once we get 
into our house, I could probably support my family with two 
hundred dollars a year, with the industry of the family and 
what I should receive from the people, and be able to devote 
myself entirely to the ministry of the Word, should there be 
any w-ay opened whereby 3'ou can with certainty make re- 
mittances principally in articles of clothing and furniture 
such as will be indispensable to our comfort. We trust the 
time is near when the present difficulties under which we 
labor will be obviated by the establishing of a regular mail 
route across the mountains and by a frequent communication 
by shipping from this place to New York and other Atlantic 
ports. I trust before this the terms of a permanent peace 
are negotiated between our nation and Mexico. O, when 
will the adorable Prince of Peace forever terminate the hor- 
rors of war ! I trust that tolerance to the gospel will be 
gained to all the country which our nation may acquire, but 
there is efficacy in our gospel to gain this victory at incom- 
parably less expense, both of money and sufferings. 

It is greatly to be regretted that we are situated so far 
from your relief that we are obliged to leave our appropriate 
calling to procure our daily bread, and I have often asked 
the question why our hands must be bound when there is 
so much to do for the cause of our Redeemer in Oregon. It 
is not because the people refuse to hear the gospel from our 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 201 

lips ; and God is my witness tliat it is not because I delight 
in secular pursuits, at least while on every hand we see so 
much need of the undivided, unremitted labors of a devoted 
gospel ministry. But while we lie in this situation, other 
denominations of Christians are beginning to lay a founda- 
tion for future influence, and among them the Roman Catho- 
lics are the most numerous and the best sustained by far. 

We are in daily expectation of the arrival of a vessel 
freighted with Roman missionaries, . priests, teachers, nuns 
and missionary funds to the amount, it is said, of $130,000 
to be expended in Oregon. Can we, must we labor five or 
six days with our hands and then, when the Sabbath re- 
turns, go worn down in body (and shall I say in spirit?) and 
but half prepared to the place where God is to be publicly 
worshipped and there meet the congregations and proclaim 
to them the words of Eternal Life? But God is our helper, 
and His promise does not fail. Even in these trying circum- 
stances we often feel an assurance of the Divine presence in 
the little groups to which we preach. 

You request me to be specific in making my reports ac- 
cording to the instructions contained in our appointments. 
I must be honest in this matter. For the last six months my 
labors have been principally confined to the Sabbath ; my 
visits of a pastoral kind have been few. In our county we 
have not sustained a prayer-meeting; but we are beginning 
to make an efifort to sustain the monthly concert. On our 
removal to these plains we immediately organized a Sabbath 
school and Bible class in connection with the Presbyterians. 
There are about twenty-five Sabbath school children and T 
have a Bible class of about ten middle-aged and young men. 
Mrs. Fisher and our daughter have each a class. We have 
a small library of about thirty volumes and expect to obtain 
an addition from books sent out by the Massachusetts S. S. 
Society. We have made this temporary arrangement and 
addressed the Corresponding Secretary of the A. S. S. Union, 
soliciting a donation of books. Our Sabbath exercises are 
conducted as follows: Preaching at 11 o'clock A. M; inter- 



202 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

mission ; Sunday school, after which we spend about an hour 
in singing. 

Our plains extend from the mouth of the Columbia River 
along" the beach south about fifteen miles, and for the sake 
of our Sabbath school, we have deemed it expedient to meet 
and preach with the Presbyterians, the Presbyterian minister 
occupying one Sabbath and I the next, alternately.^-^ I 
preached a few Sabbaths at 5 P. M. in the south part of 
the plains, but it was soon found that a want of time com- 
pelled us to abandon the evening preaching. 

Our congregations are about fifty, on an average. We 
have not yet taken any measures to organize a Baptist 
church in this place, there being no male members but my- 
self, yet we think we shall do something on that subject this 
season. We meet in a little log school house, about 16 feet 
square, in which my daughter teaches a small day school of 
about 15 children. I have obtained no signatures to the tem- 
perance pledge in the form in which you published it,^^^ but 
the frequent instances of violation of the laws by introduc- 
ing ardent spirits among the Indians and selling to the 
Whites without license induced the settlers to call a meet- 
ing, which resulted in every man but two or three signing 
a pledge that we would hold our persons and property in 
readiness to prevent the unlawful introduction and sale of 
intoxicating spirits into our county. Little is drunk in the 
county except by the Indians and a few Whites who are as 
regardless of principle as the savages themselves. Perhaps 
I can sa}^ with certainty that for the last four weeks we have 
had more than usual attention to the preaching of the Word, 
although we learn of no instances of hopeful conversion. We 
feel a strong assurance that a great change externally has 
taken place among the inhabitants of these plains within the 

128 This Presbyterian minister was probably Lewis Thompson, a native of 
Kentucky, who came to the Pacific Coast in 1846 and settled on Clatsop Plains. 
P.ancroft, Hist, of Ore. II :680. 

129 Temperance sentiment was strong in early Oregon. There was a prohi- 
bition law from 1844 to 1846 and a large proportion of the population was in favor 
of prohibition even after there was no law on the statute book to that effect. — Ban- 
croft, Hist, of Ore. 1:281, 437, 537-9; 11:37. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 203 

last six months. A general desire to maintain good order in 
society is apparent. 

The people generally have not been accustomed to aid in 
the support of the gospel, and as yet they have everything 
to do to open their farms and provide their families with 
clothing which would be regarded very indifferent, even on 
the frontier territories east of the mountains. I find neigh- 
bors kind, but it will require years to place them in even 
comfortable circumstances. Consequently we cannot expect 
much support immediately from the people. We have one 
sister who has furnished us with more than half our butter 
this summer. The people help me some in building my 
house. _ 

On the subject of education our citizens manifest a very 
laudable spirit. We should have erected a school house 
suitable for a school and meeting house this summer but 
for the extreme pressure of business to prepare for the com- 
ing winter. 

July 26. — I have just learned that the Brutus is to leave 
the first favorable wind and Elder Geo. Gary^^o ^g to return 
to New York on board with his wife. I therefore have but 
a few minutes more to write, and much to write. I must 
therefore close this package in a few minutes and carry 
them ten miles, deliver today and return. 

I have several times stated to you the sum with which 
we could be sustained by taxing every power of economy, 
and even parsimony, within our reach. But were we to be 
liberated to devote ourselves as freely to the ministry as our 
brethren in New England and New York, with all their aid 
of deacons, deaconesses and pious, devoted lay members, it 
would require a sum not less than from $400 to $600 per 
year. And why should we not give ourselves wholly to the 
work? Is it because the labors of a missionary in Oregon 
are less important than those of a local pastor in the 



130 Rev. George Gary came to Oregon in 1844 and was superintendent of the 
Methodist Mission in Oregon, 1844-7. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:39, 218; 11: 677. 



204 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

churches at home? Your Board and the churches wish to 
hear the most cheering news of our success as ministers. 
You wish our pens ably wielded in the description of the 
country as it relates to its geography, physical resources, 
natural history, manners and customs of the people, and in 
short everything which will contribute to scatter light and 
awaken an interest on the subject of our new' territory, and 
all this is right. But how can this be done by men loaded 
with secular cares and worn by daily labor to procure what 
would be a poor subsistence in the States. If I have one 
object for which I desire to live more than all others, it is 
to see the cause for which Christ empoverished Himself 
making the people of Oregon rich. That this may be done, 
we must labor in every moral department which relates to 
the well being of a new republic where vice rolls in like the 
waves of the ocean. 

i^;hope to be able to write a few more sheets which will 
reach Elder Gary at the Sandwich Islands. 

I wish you to forward me most of the amount appro- 
priated for my support in such articles of clothing as we 
shall order, as far as practicable. A few dollars in money 
seem indispensable, perhaps twenty, which you will probably 
send in gold or silver in the box of goods you send. Here- 
after direct all boxes and packages for me to Astoria. 

Please send us the following articles, as far as practicable 
and in accordance with the directions of the Board : 

Two bolts of good common sheeting, unbleached ; 

Twelve yards of good bed ticking; 

Two webs of good common calico, dark colored ; 

Twenty yards of linsey for children's winter dresses : 

Two pairs of women's calfskin shoes, suitable for an Ore- 
gon winter. No. 4; 

Two pairs of good slippers. No. 4; 

Two pairs of stout calfskin shoes, men's, No. 9, suitable 
for winter rains ; 

Two pairs of boys' shoes, stout, Nos. 3 and 4; 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 205 

Two pairs girls' shoes, Nos. 1 and 2; 

Two pairs of girls' shoes, Nos. 12 and 13, little children's 
numbers ; 

Twenty or twenty-five yards of Kentucky Janes; 

One dark shawl of worsted, or some kind of woolen text- 
ure, adapting the price somewhat to our income ; 

One dress coat black cloth ; I think no doubt that one 
which would fit you will fit me, but guard against ex- 
penses ;^^^ let it be substantial, but it may be much coarser 
than would be called for in your cit}- ; 

Ten yards of satinet ; 

One dollar's worth of good spool thread ; 

One card of shirt buttons ; 

Hooks and eyes, pins, sewing needles ; 

Two fine combs ; 

50 cents' worth of tape, sewing silk, pants and vest but- 
tons ; 

1 pair of cheap fire shovel and tongs ; 

1 pair of plain andirons ; 

One cheap set of teacups and saucers ; 

Six common dining plates, four bowls ; 

One spider, called skillet in the West, for frying meat ; 

One pair of silver set spectacles ; 

15 or 20 pounds of cofifee ; 

One two-quart pitcher, plain ; 

Two cheap linen table cloths, white. 

Give my thanks to Br. Everts for the Bible Manual. Br. 
Johnson has received his. 

I am now on board the Brutus and in great haste. Elder 
Gary has engaged to deliver these sheets in person and will 
probably give you some interesting descriptions of the state 
of things generally in Oregon. 

I will just say that I have received a letter from a Brother 



131 It was the frequent custom of the author, in ordering from the East, to 
specify that the clothes should fit Rev. Benjamin Hill, as the two were about the 
same size. 



206 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Ross,^-'^ a member of Br. Evert's church, who is in CaH- 
fornia. He is engaged in a Sabbath school at San Francisco 
Bay, and strongly solicits ministerial aid. From all the in- 
formation I can receive, I am of the opinion that a faithful 
missionary or two should be sent to California immediately 
on the receipt of the intelligence that it is added to the 
United States. I am. 

Yours as ever, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at the Mouth of the Columbia River. 

Should you have opportunity to forward any boxes or 
packages to the Islands and not directly to this place, you 
can direct to me to the care of E. O. Hall, Financier for the 
A. B. C. F. Missions at Honolulu, Oahu. and pay the freight 
and they will probably reach me in safety. 

Received Jan. 17, 1848. 



Clatsop Plains, Oregon, Oct. 20th, 1847. 
Rev. and Dear Br. Hill: 

The Bark Whiton being about to sail for N. Y. in a day 
or two, I take this opportunity to address you a line, which I 
trust will reach you in three months, as Captain Gelston 
proposes crossing the Isthmus and sending his ship around 
the Cape. 

The two boxes of goods which you forwarded me on the 
Whiton were duly received, and the accompanying letters. 
I have delivered half the Bibles and Testaments, pamphlets 
and periodicals, and half of the goods which you forwarded 
to me, without my order, to Br. Johnson. . . . 

The Bibles, Testaments, periodicals and reports were most 
gladly received and read with eagerness not only by myself 
and family, but by the surrounding community. They 
seemed to transport us to the shores of civilization and the 
regions of Christian enterprise, after years of seclusion. I 



132 This was Charles L. Ross, who came by sea to California in 1847. He was 
prominent in San Francisco for a number of years as a merchant, landowner, and 
public-spirited man. Bancroft, Hist, of Cal. V :704. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 207 

carry with me a few tracts and religious periodicals each 
Sabbath, and give away the tracts and request the periodi- 
cals to be returned for further circulation. I give away no 
tract without enjoining upon the receiver the importance of 
reading it. 

Your letter of January 19th and 24th was received last 
week, but the periodicals are still behind ; probably lost. I 
have just returned from a tour of four weeks in the Will- 
amette Valle3^ I found rather an interesting state of things 
in Tualatin Plains. A gradual work of grace has been in 
progress in those Plains since last June. Since last January, 
Brother Vincent Snelling has baptized fifteen into the fel- 
lowship of the church in that place, two of whom were the 
fruits of a series of meetings held last year during my resi- 
dence there. Some three or four more will be baptized next 
month. Religious interests are wearing a more favorable 
appearance on Yam Hill River and on the Rickreal. Two 
have been added to the former church and others will prob- 
ably unite soon with each of the above named churches. 
The Methodists and Congregationalists in the Willamette 
Valley have received some accessions. The Campbellites are 
industriously engaged in making proselytes. We have no 
unusual interest in this place and our congregations are 
good for the number of people in the community ; and a 
marked attention is given to the preaching of the Word. O, 
that God would give me more of the spirit of my station ! 
We have not yet constituted a church in this place, and 
shall probably delay organizing until spring, unless we 
should see that the time has come to arise and build before 
that time. We are having some accessions to our population 
on the coast by the present emigration now arriving, and 
somewhat expect one or more Baptist families to settle 
with us. 

Since the first of last August I have labored about half 
of the time directly in the appropriate duties of the ministry, 
and the remainder of the time in providing for the immediate 
wants of my family ; preached 13 sermons : delivered two 



208 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

lectures; attended one prayer-meeting; one covenant meet- 
ing; visited religiously 20 families and 12 individuals; visited 
no common schools ; baptized none ; obtained no signatures 
to the temperance pledge ; neither assisted at the organiza- 
tion of a church nor the ordination of a minister ; have taught 
regularly a Bible class of 10 scholars, except four Sabbaths 
of my absence ; distributed about 500 pages of tracts, 10 
Bibles and 20 Testaments; traveled 450 miles to and from 
my appointments; received no person either by letter or ex- 
perience ; no cases of conversion in the field of my labor ; no 
young men preparing for the ministry. The monthly concert 
is not sustained in Oregon. My people have paid nothing for 
missions, Bible societies or other societies ; for my support $5. 
Connected with my labors is one Sunday school conducted 
by Baptists and Presbyterians; 30 scholars and six teachers, 
two of whom are Baptists ; and about 40 volumes in our 
library. x\s soon as the opening of the spring we design es- 
tablishing our preaching meetings and Sabbath school sepa- 
rate. 

I have repeatedly explained to you the reason of fixing my 
location at the mouth of the Columbia at so early a date in 
the history of the country. It is simply from its local im- 
portance and not because we have a large population in our 
vicinity at present. But our population is increasing gradu- 
ually and are among the most intelligent and enterprising 
of Oregon, and I am greatly mistaken if our population and 
enterprise do not rapidly increase after next summer. I 
think the commercial mart of our Territory must be at As- 
toria, or near the mouth of the Columbia. My present plan 
of operation is to spend the rainy season in this vicinity and. 
during the best part of the year for traveling and collecting 
congregations, spend two or three months in traveling and 
preaching in the Willamette Valley till they are better sup- 
plied with preachers , and. if time permits, to visit Pugets 
Sound during the summer and, should our brethren settle 
there, which they probably will the coming season, raise an 
interest there, with the blessing of Him without whom we 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 209 

can do nothing. This point and the Sound must become the 
great commercial points in Oregon. We have now four 
Baptist ministers in the Territory besides Br. Johnson and 
myself who will probably settle in the Willamette Valley 
above Oregon City^-^-' and, although they have not enjoyed 
great advantages, they will probably be able to preach to the 
churches now formed and sustain the religious interests, with 
the assistance which Br. J. and myself can render them, till 
other ministers shall arrive, if God goes with them. A large 
portion of our Baptist members are from the upper part of 
Missouri and have not been much accustomed to exercise 
themselves in Christian enterprises, consequently it is too 
much to expect that they immediately engage in Sabbath 
schools and other benevolent efiforts with the facility and 
perseverance of men trained from their youth in this kind 
of work. Besides, many of them were just able to raise 
means sufficient to bring their families across the moun- 
tains and they have everything to do to give their families 
a competent living. Yet we have some happy exceptions ; 
may God greatly multiply this class. We have fixed upon 
the third week in next June to organize an association and 
trust by that time we shall have seven or eight churches to 
go into that organization. I think Br. Vincent Snelling 
ought to receive an appointment with a salary of $100 or 
$150. He is a faithful, worthy brother. I informed him 
that it would be expected that the churches which he sup- 
plied would request the Home Missionary Society to assist 
them in sustaining him and specify the amount they were 
able to do. He manifested a reluctancy to lay the subject 
before the churches, lest it might arouse some prejudice, as 
the churches were not altogether missionary in their views. 
I replied that I should be unwilling to constitute churches 
which would be likely to excommunicate me for carrying out 
the great principles of the gospel plan of salvation. Yet I 



133 There are records of only three ministers — Rev. Vincent Snelling, Wm. Por- 
ter, and Richard Miller — besides the author and Mr. Johnson. The fourth was 
possibly Tames Rond, who was licensed but not ordained. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 
I :43, 58," 59. Minutes of Willamette Bap. Assn. of Oregon, for 1848. 



210 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

thought he was unnecessarily timid, and I should apprehend 
no unpleasant consequences in presenting the subject in a 
mild and attectionate manner. I leave the subject with your 
Board, hoping on the whole that Br. Snelling may receive 
your patronage. I can assure you he is a zealous, worthy 
brother. 

As it relates to California, I think our Board should spare 
no time in finding a judicious, practical preacher to locate at 
the most favorable point on San Francisco Bay. Our whal- 
ing vessels and merchant and war ships are almost constant- 
ly entering and leaving that Bay and, should our Govern- 
ment retain Upper California, there must be places of im- 
portance immediately springing up on that spacious harbor. 
Br. Ross, a member of Br. Evart's church of your city, is 
there, and perhaps he has already applied to you for a 
minister. 

Baptist peculiarities must be vindicated in Oregon. Our 
Pedo-baptist and Campbellite neighbors are mooting the sub- 
ject of baptism, and especially of communion. May we have 
grace to present these subjects as gospel truths in the love 
of the gospel of the Blessed Saviour. 

Brother Johnson received a letter from you informing us 
that the Board had voted to increase our salaries to $200 
each, which I hope wnll enable us to give ourselves entirely 
to the work, after three or four weeks which must be spent, 
on my part, in rendering my house tolerable for the winter. 

I wrote you in July by Elder Gary, on his return to New 
York. (He will probably deliver the package in person.) 
In those letters I ordered you to forward me some articles of 
clothing and other articles. Should you receive this in sea- 
son to forward a few other articles with the box before 
ordered, you will please put up twelve yards of Canton flan- 
nel ; fifteen yards of red woolen flannel ; six or eight pounds 
of saleratus or pearlash — put it up in a box or jar; four 
pounds of candle wicking; a tin reflector for baking bread; a 
hat, cheap, substantial. 23V2 inches around the outside under 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 211 

the band ; one set of Fuller's works bound in sheep. '^"^ I very 
much need a commentary of the Bible, having disposed of 
both of mine before leaving the States on account of the 
transportation across the mountains, but I do not know but 
I shall make my orders exceed my income. Put up also one 
additional web of substantial dark calico. We hope the Bap- 
tist Publication Society will forward us a few of their pub- 
lications, such as exhibit the peculiarities of the denomination 
and others of a devotional character, such as memoirs of emi- 
nent Christians, as a donation, if they can. The people here 
need religious reading. Probably some books of the above 
named character might be sold. Can you not obtain and for- 
ward us more tracts, as our stock will be exhausted before 
we shall get returns from this? 

My family are in good health. Indeed, we have had no 
sickness on the coast with the whites since the settlement 
of the country. Providence has given us one of the most 
salubrious climes on earth. No doubt the whole Territory 
is more healthy than any portion of the United States of the 
same extent of territory. Although we have small districts 
contiguous to inundated lands somewhat subject to bilious 
attacks in the summer, yet no New Englander, or even any 
person east of the Alleghany Mountains, has anything to* lose 
in point of health in emigrating to Oregon. 

I design spending some time next winter in giving you a 
general description of the country — its physical resources, the 
manners and customs of the people and the improvements 
of the country in manufactures and commerce. At present, 
however, I will only repeat substantially what I have more 
than once written to my friends in the States, that, although 
the face of the country below the Cascade range of moun- 
tains is generally broken, except on the valleys of the rivers, 
yet I think there is less waste land than is found in the same 
extent of countrv in New England, and the soil will not suf- 



134 The works of Andrew Fuller (1754-1815), a famous Baptist (English) 
theologian. McClintock and Strong, Cys. of Bibl. Theol. and Eccl. Lit. 111:62. 
The edition asked for was probably that published in Philadelphia, edited bj' Joseph 
Belcher. O. A. Roorbach, Bibliotheca Americana, p. 209. 



212 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

fer in comparison with that of New York, and portions of 
this district probably equal the finest parts of the great West- 
ern valley. Almost all our hill and mountain lands are rich 
and almost entirely free from stone and it is generally be- 
lieved that the timbered land will produce better than the 
prairies when once it is cleared. The tim.ber, although of an 
enormous growth, is generally so filled with balsam or pitch 
that when green it is fallen by fire and, with comparatively 
little chopping or piling, the fire consumes it; so that lan.l 
may be cleared fit for the plough as easily in Oregon a.^ in 
New York. 

As far as my observation has extended, the lands bordering 
upon the coast possess the richest, deepest soil and produce 
the most abundantly where they are sufficiently level to be 
cultivated. Few countries can be found in the world which 
will produce vegetables in greater abundance, or of a more 
delicious flavor, than the lands on the coast of Oregon so far 
as they have been tested. Although little is known in the 
state of Oregon except the far-famed Willamette Valley, yet 
it is my opinion that the soil on the coast, wherever it is 
sufficiently level for cultivation, will by far surpass that val- 
ley in producing every kind of vegetable, and perhaps will 
not be inferior to it in the growth of wheat. Oats and barley 
flourish remarkably well on the poorest lands on the coast. 
The whole coast country will undoubtedly become one of the 
finest countries in the world for rearing cattle, horses and 
sheep, when once its forests are removed and the grasses are 
introduced. We only want our coast to be occupied with the 
industrious, enterprising farmers of N. Y. and N. England 
to make it one of the most desirable countries in the world. 
The whole coast region is so tempered with ocean spray and 
timely showers during the whole of the summer months that 
it is almost entirely exempt from the severe droughts to 
which the country is so much subject east of the Coast Range 
of mountains. 

The general impression has been made abroad that there is 
little good land susceptible of settlement near the sea board. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 213 

But I think it will be found that there is about as much good 
land suited to farming purposes in the vicinity of the mouth 
of the Columbia as there is in the vicinity of the Hudson 
River. And bordering Pugets Sound, including Whitby's 
and other islands, are many line tracts of very rich land well 
adapted to agricultural purposes. And perhaps a very con- 
siderable tract of the finest, richest land in Oregon may be 
found on the coast between the mouth of the Umpqua River 
and the southern boundary of the Territory. Indeed, I am 
informed by those who have traveled the coast that there 
is not a stream putting into the ocean south of the mouth 
of the Columbia but aflfords some good land for settlement. 

I have given you these brief facts, hoping and praying that 
they may come under the eye of many a pious brother, and 
sister too, whose spirit may be moved to come over and 
labor with us in the glorious work of giving a moral and re- 
ligious character to the thousands of our own countrymen 
who now people Oregon and the millions who will soon 
people the Pacific shores. Cannot some of our excellent 
deacons and praying, working, young married brothers and 
sisters be induced to come and become our fellow laborers 
in this delightful clime and in this most delightful and im- 
portant work? Is not the great Head of the church now 
pressing the question to the very heart of numbers of our 
lay brethren? Will they not go and plant the seed and cul- 
tivate the tender plants in the garden of the Lord? How im- 
portant the position in relation to half the globe, and that 
yet unevangelized ! How important the position in relation 
to the commercial world, if the half is even realized which 
our national government anticipates ! Will not many of our 
praying brethren heed the call and come and work with us 
in the morning of our existence in Oregon? Everything is 
to be done, if this part of our country is to be saved from the 
reign of idolatry, the tyranny of skepticism and the dominion 
of the Beast. I must close this and hasten to write a few 
lines to our private friends. 

Yours respectfully, EZRA FISHER. 



214 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

N, B. — We shall establish the monthly concert in these 
Plains next month. Romans are sparing no pains to secure 
the influence and wealth of Oregon to their church; their 
priests are all Jesuits. May all our brethren in the States 
pray for God's blessings to rest on our labours. Will you 
not use your influence in encouraging our lay brethren to 
come and settle with us? I can almost assure them that 
they will never regret the sacrifice they must make at the 
first, if they will first count the cost, in the fear of the Lord, 
and wait on Him after their arrival before they get dis- 
heartened. Many on their arrival, seeing things so new and 
different from the more improved parts of the country they 
have left, become soon dissatisfied, before they have tried 
a winter and a summer in Oregon. But few, very few, re- 
main dissatisfied more than six or eight months. When 
once they feel the bracing salubrious atmosphere of the sum- 
mer and see the generous returns for their labor, they soon 
form a strong attachment to the country, and nothing but 
the want of improved society and a love of relatives and 
friends left behind will induce them to look back with desire 
to the land of their youth. These inconveniences must be 
remedied by the habitual efforts of every philanthropist and 
Christian. 

Yours truly, E. F. 

Received May 6, 1848. 



October 31, 1847. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

We are all in health. Winter rains are just commencing. 
Crop of wheat in the upper country is light by means of an 
unusually dry summer, but on the coast all crops are usually 
good, droughts seldom aflfecting the coast seriously. The 
present immigration is numerous, the number of wagons be- 
ing generally estimated at about 1,000 and about 4,000 
souls. ^^5 Perhaps they have had more than a usual share of 



135 Bancroft says the number of persons was between 4000 and 5000. Hist, of 
Ore. 1:623. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 215 

sickness and suffering on the road. Hundreds are yet on the 
last part of the journey. More than 1,200 or 1,500 wagons 
should never attempt to cross the mountains in one year; 
and they should not be incumbered with more loose cattle 
than is necessary for ample teams and milch cows. Sheep 
stand the journey best of all domestic animals and are the 
most useful when here. Emigrants from the eastern and 
middle states should come by water, if they can submit to 
a long sea voyage. Please enter the enclosed letters in the 
post office immediately upon reception of this. I send you 
a package of three sheets by Captain Gelston containing my 
report from August first. Shall spend some time during the 
rainy season in writing you. 

Our general prospects in Oregon are brightening. Com- 
merce is increasing rapidly and a general impulse is given 
to every branch of business. We earnestly hope the U. S. 
Congress will provide for us a government the coming ses- 
sion. ^^6 J trust your Board will provide for California im- 
mediately on the U. S. securing that territory to her juris- 
diction. A colporter preacher jointly sustained by the A. 
Bapt. Publication Society and the H. Mission Board, with 
a supply of books and tracts, would be an invaluable acces- 
sion to Oregon. I have written Br. Malcom on that subject. 
Oregon is in perishing need of this very kind of instrumen- 
tality. Will not our Eastern Baptists give this Ter. the first 
colporter, with his supply of books adapted to every age and 
condition of man in the formation of a moral and religious 
character? You may think me enthusiastic. Well, be it so, 
I am quite sure you could not be less so, were you here to 
see and feel our wants as I do. We must have the Psalm- 
ist^^^ here ; a few dozen would sell and these would prepare 
the way for hundreds more. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 

Received Mav 6. 1848. 



136 Oregon was given a territorial government in 1848. 

137 The "Psalmist" was a Bantist Hymnal bv Baron Stow and S. F. Smith. 
McClintock and Strong, Cyc. of Bibl. Theol. and Eccl. Lit. VIII :745. 



216 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Clatsop Plains, March the 8th, 1848. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

The last communications I received from you were under 
date of October 2nd and 31st and Nov. 13th, 1846, per Bark 
Whiton, and I reported by the same bark up to November 
1st, 1847. I also saw a letter to Br. Johnson, which I think 
was brought through by the immigration of 1847, in which 
was stated the fact that the Executive Board had voted to 
increase our salary to $200 each, which fact I acknowledged 
in my last. The Bibles and Testaments appropriated by 
the City Bible Society have been of essential service in sup- 
plying the destitute and relieving the wants of our Sab- 
bath schools and Bible class. The tracts have been earnestly 
sought and read with much interest, both by parents and 
children, and no doubt they have been blessed of God as an 
efficient auxiliary to the ministry of the Word and Sabbath 
school instruction. My portion of this stock of tracts is more 
than half gone and I have promised Brother Vincent Snell- 
ing some. By the blessing of the All Wise, I propose spend- 
ing about two months of the approaching summer in the 
Willamette Valley. I am therefore using them sparingly 
that I may take a package along with me. I earnestly hope 
you will not fail to have more forwarded, at least yearly. 
I made a feeble appeal to the Corresponding Sec. A. B. P. 
Society in behalf of books, both for Sab. schools and the 
ministry, and also recommended the appointment of a col- 
porter for Oregon who should be a preacher. I trust that 
appeal will be heeded and call forth a hearty response, not 
simply from that Society, but from the churches. After last 
writing I found a note from you on the margin of a pam- 
phlet informing me for the first time of my being made a 
life member of the A. and F. Bible Society. Assure Br. 
Allen that it would aflford me great pleasure to receive a line 
from him informing me through what medium my name 
has been enrolled in that list of worthy names which have 
contributed so much to publish that blessed Book unadulter- 
ated for the nations of the earth. The Bible is above all 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 217 

price. May God grant the unknown donor a disciple's re- 
ward and bless the offering to the everlasting joy of many 
souls. As for myself, I am utterly unworthy this token of 
respect. As I expect to forward this by the return party 
who will probably leave early next month, and it is some- 
what uncertain whether it will reach you, I must defer writ- 
ing much that would be interesting and proceed to state a 
few of the most important facts. 

I send you herein a report of my labor from the first of 
Nov. last up to the present date. My labors have been con- 
fined to Clatsop County. Since my last report I have thought 
best to divide my labors on the Sabbath. Accordingly 1 
preach one Sabbath at my own house (a log cabin 18 feet by 
24) in the south half of these plains and the alternate one 
in the north half of the plains. I ha>ve labored nineteen 
weeks, but part of my time I am compelled to devote to the 
immediate wants of my family. I preached 20 sermons, de- 
livered no lectures, attended four prayer meetings and two 
religious conferences preparatory to the constitution of a 
church. Visited religiously forty families and persons, two 
common schools. Baptized none. Obtained no signatures 
to the temperance pledge. Have assisted in organizing no 
church nor the ordination of any minister. Traveled 147 
miles to and from my appointments. None received by let- 
ter, none by experience and we know of no cases of conver- 
sion. We have one young married brother licensed to preach 
by a church in lowa.^^^ The monthly concert of prayer is 
observed at my house. My people have paid nothing for 
missions, foreign, home or domestic. Nothing for the Bible 
cause. Publication Soc. nothing. Education Soc. nothing. 
For my salary, fourteen dollars. Connected with my stations 
are two Sunday schools, 42 scholars and ten teachers and in 
one school 100 volumes recently donated by a friend ; and 
in the other 20 volumes. I have also a Bible class with eight 
pupils. We have commenced building a hewed log house for 



138 This was James Bond, who lost his life by an accident in 1849. He had 
come to Oregon in 1847. Mattoon. Bap. An. of Ore. 1:8. 



218 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

a school and meeting house, 18 feet by 24, and will be able to 
use it as a place of worship within six or eight weeks. This 
may appear to your Board too trifling and unimportant to be 
named in a report, but, could you experience all the priva- 
tions of a new country as I am doing, you would look upon 
this effort as a valuable acquisition to our spiritual comforts 
and an important monument to the progress of civilization 
within the deafening roar of the Pacific's surf. I have re- 
garded it an object so desirable to be accomplished that 1 
have already devoted more than two weeks' time in laborious 
efforts through rain and shine in this work. May God be 
graciously pleased to make it a nursery of science, a foun- 
tain of morals, a birthplace of souls and a spiritual light- 
house to guide the pilgrims to the haven of rest. We have 
appointed the 13th and the 19th of the present month to 
meet for the constitution of a church in the plains and have 
invited our sister churches to send us their delegates to sit 
in council with us on the occasion. We hope a foundation is 
being laid here for future lasting usefulness. God only 
knows. Our congregations have been usually good through 
the entire winter and Sabbath schools well attended and, al- 
though we can record no signal display of Divine grace, our 
apparent changes seem to indicate the Divine favor. I have 
seldom felt a deeper sense of the responsibility of the minis- 
try and the impor'tance of establishing correct moral and re- 
ligious principles in a new and rising community than dur- 
ing the last winter. We greatly need the prayers of the 
churches that we may reap ere long a gracious harvest. Our 
communities are surrounded by heathen and no one can tell 
the excessively immoral influence which the heathen exert 
on a civilized community. And then the number of profes- 
sors are few, consequently but few restraints are imposed 
on the impenitent. Added to this, the fact that we are at 
present involved in an unpleasant Indian war with the Cay- 
use tribe inhabiting the country along the foot of the Blue 
Mountains, south of the Columbia River, keeps the people 
in a state of excitement unfavorable to the cultivation of the 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 219 

Christian graces. The apparent cause of the difficulty seems 
to have originated in the fact of the last year's immigrants 
having brought the measles among the Cayuse Indians. 
Many sickened and died with them and the flux. The In- 
dians, ever jealous and credulous, suspicioned Dr. Whitman 
of poisoning them. It seems a treacherous half-breed who 
had been educated by the missionaries and residing in Dr. 
Whitman's family circulated the report that he had over- 
heard the doctor and Mr. Spaulding discussing the subject 
of the best method of eixterminating the Indians. Finally, 
about the 30th of November, one of the most inhuman trage- 
dies which the history of savage cruelty has ever recorded 
was perpetrated in open day. Dr. Whitman, his excellent 
wife, Mr. Rodgers, a young man of unblemished character and 
engaging manner studying for the ministry, and ten other 
persons were brutally butchered by the very chiefs who had 
long manifested great confidence in the Dr., and for whom 
he has so long labored and sacrificed almost all the blessings 
of civilization to ameliorate their conditions and direct their 
wdiole tribe to the glories of Heaven through a crucified 
Saviour. About thirty men, women and children were then 
taken captive and reduced to Indian slaves and the females 
suffered the most revolting acts of savage violence in the 
presence of their own husbands and fathers and mothers, 
against which no entreaties or remonstrances were of any 
avail for more than a month till Mr. Ogden, one of the chief 
factors of the Hudson Bay Co., proceeded with twenty-two 
men from Fort Vancouver and redeemed the captives and 
brought them to Oregon City. Mr, Spaulding and family 
have been rescued from imminent danger and are now in the 
W^illamette Valley. Messrs. Eels and Walker have not yet 
been heard from. Fears are entertained that they, with 
their families, may be cut ofif. Yet, as they are in the Spo- 
kane country, it is hoped they will find a place of refuge at 
Fort Hall in case of imminent danger. ^^^ Our legislature 



139 This account of the Whitman massacre is on the whole correct. The date 
was November 29th, not 30th. Walker and Eells stayed in the Spokane Country 
until spring, protected by the Indian chief. Bancroft. Hist, of Ore. 1 :66. Cornelius 
Gilliam, not Gillham, was the commander of the territorial troops. Ibid. 1:676. 



220 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

was in session at the time the news of the horrid massa- 
cre reached the settlements, and one company of about fifty 
men was immediately sent to The Dalles above the Cascade 
Mountains to secure the friendly relations of the Indians in 
that vicinity, and early in January five more companies were 
raised, put under the command of General Gillham and 
marched into the Cayuse country. Our troops have had 
two engagements with the Indians before reaching the Cay- 
use country, in which some fifteen or twenty Indians were 
killed and one of our men wounded. ^^^ Probably before this 
time there has been a general battle, if the Indians will risk 
an engagement in the open fields. It is generally hoped that 
we shall escape a general Indian war. The Hudson Bay 
Company exerts a great influence with the Indians, most of 
the officers and servants having taken Indian wives, and 
their interests and influence will be of a pacific character. 
Yet we do not feel ourselves altogether safe, living as we 
do in the midst of small tribes. We feel that our onl}^ con- 
fidence is in God and in His hands we surrender ourselves 
and our little ones daily. We are waiting with great anxiety 
to see one or more U. S. war vessels come into our river. 
Our governor has dispatched an express to California,^'*^ hop- 
ing that the bearer of dispatches will find part of our Pacific 
squadron in San Francisco Bay, who may afford us protec- 
tion till an express shall reach Washington and our hitherto 
too tardy government may give us security in the midst of 
the heathen. It is feared by many that the Jesuit priests 
were obsequious to the horrid massacre of Dr. Whitman and 
family.^'*^ I hope to be able to send you the whole corre- 
spondence relative to this subject. By this unexpected prov- 
idence, it is feared that every Protestant mission to the In- 
dians west of the Rocky Mountains will be broken up. At 
least they must be discontinued for the present, while Ro- 



140 The one wounded was Wm. Rerry. Rancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:703. 

141 The overland messengers did not succeed in getting through to California. 
The letters to California were finally forwarded via the brig "Henry," which sailed 
after the above was written. Rancroft, Hist, of Ore. I :679. 

142 The long and unfortunate debate over the question of Catholic influence 
in the Whitman massacre is here reflected. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 221 

manism holds undisputed sway over all those savage minds. 
Should not this fact furnish an argument sufficiently power- 
ful to arouse the sympathies of the friends of missions to 
new efforts in behalf of the degraded sons of the western 
plains and mountains, and especially as we trust the time 
is at the door when our national government will give pro- 
tection to the lives of the missionaries of the churches? I 
will assure you. dear brother, as a philanthropist and a 
Christian minister, I earnestly desire and devoutly pray that 
our national government will lose no time in extending her 
excellent laws over our Territory.^"*^ Our laws, although as 
much respected as could reasonably be expected, are ineffi- 
cient in the punishment of crime. The public mind is un- 
settled constantly, hoping for a better and more complete 
code of laws ; difficulties in relation to land claims will be 
multiplying and afford fruitful sources of litigation and our 
relations to the savages will be subject to repeated discon- 
tent till our government treats with them for their lands. 
They have long been told that the Boston Hy-as Tyee 
(Chief) will come next year and pay them for their lands 
till they say their tum-tum (heart) is sick and they do not 
know but they shall mimmelus (die) before the Boston Hy-a-; 
Tyee comes. Our Indian neighbors like to have the Bostons 
settle among them and give them two or three blankets, a 
gun or a horse for a section of land and are fond of trading 
with^the Whites, yet they are like children in their tradings 
with the Whites. They have generally great confidence in 
the honesty of the Whites till they are aroused to jealousy 
by some designing person. 

March 24th. — You will probably learn the state of our 
Indian relations to a later date than this through the me- 
dium of the return party who will leave the settlements for 
the States about the 20th of April, and w\\\ probably pass 
sufficiently near the Cayuse nation to learn the state of the 
\var. 



143' The reference is here, of course, to the laws passed by the provisional 
govrnment organized in Oregon pending the extension of the protection of the 
United States over the colonv. 



222 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

I have just received yours under date of April 1st, 1847, 
which came to the Islands on board the Medora, and will 
just state that it affords me great pleasure to learn that God 
still reigns in your anniversaries. May you ever be able 
truthfully to adopt the language of the Psalmist, "Behold 
how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell to- 
gether in unity." I sometimes almost envy you those heav- 
enly entertainments, yet our Heavenly Father has other- 
wise ordered it and I would not challenge the wisdom of His 
counsels. Since I commenced this package God has been 
graciousl}^ pleased to give us more than usual intimations 
that He has not entirely withdrawn His favors from us. 
Last Lord's day we organized a little feeble church in Clat- 
sop Plains consisting of seven members, three males and 
four females,''^'* and on Monday one of my neighbors sent for 
me to call and see him. I found him laboring under a deep 
sense of his condemned condition and he said, "I tell you, 
Mr. Fisher, I am a miserable, wretched sinner." The work 
of grace appeared most distinctly marked, from a conviction 
of his exceeding sinfulness in the sight of God to that of ?. 
full surrender of himself to God and the exercise of faith in 
a crucified Redeemer. Tuesday, about 5 P. M., hope sprant^" 
up in his soul and immediately he arose from his bed, which 
he had scarcely left for twenty minutes after Sabbath night, 
and bowed in the presence of his family and a few Christian 
friends in prayer. He still enjoys the consolation of a^hope 
which fills the minds of his neighbors with surprise. . . . 
May God give me grace to improve this providence to His 
glory. All I will now say on this subject is that I find num- 
bers of our impenitent fellow citizens acknowledging that 
they have been unusually affected under the preaching of the 
Word the past winter. We can but feel an additional as- 
surance that the Spirit's silent, yet powerful influence has 
attended the preached Word the past winter. We feel great- 
ly the need of grace, lest these indications of divine favor 
pass away unimproved. Pray for us in Clatsop and in Ore- 



144 This church became extinct in a few years. Maftoon, Bap. An. of Ore. T :8. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 223 

gon that we may quit ourselves as missionaries of Jesus 
Christ as well as missionaries of the churches. 

I wrote you a large package by the Brutus and entrusted 
it to the care of Elder Gary. I also wrote in November by 
the bark Whiton, Captain Getston,'-'^ a package of three 
sheets in which I made a regular report from August to No- 
vember. But I have recently learned that that ship is char- 
tered for a transport to the Pacific squadron and I fear the 
letter will be miscarried or be long delayed. We sufifer great 
inconvenience in rendering the amount your Board appro- 
priate to our support available when needed, but hope to 
have a regular mail direct from this place to New York 
as soon as next winter. We shall then be able to make our 
reports and receive remittances from you timely so as to ob- 
viate the necessity of the too frequent interruptions of our 
missionary labors by the imperious demands of our families 
for the bare comforts of life. I know your Board cannot call 
in question our earnest desire to labor exclusively in the ap- 
propriate duties of a minister, but, if you will just advert to 
your books and count up the amount of remittances and then 
reflect that we have been already in the field two years, you 
will not wonder that we are compelled to be by far more 
secular than is desirable. I have received in these two years 
only about $70 from your Board. Could I have been in Illi- 
nois and received remittances quarterly, I should have been 
enabled to devote myself wholly to the work. These are 
unavoidable providences which will soon be succeeded by a 
direct and certain communication. I do not complain, but 
regret that your Board must be driven to the necessity of 
feeling that your missionaries are doing comparatively little 
in Oregon. 

Anything that our brethren or sisters can send us as ar- 
ticles of clothing, and especially in cloth, either woolen or 
cotton, will greatly assist us. I shall make a request that 
vou forward articles of clothinsf and common household furn- 



145 Gaiston, not "Getston." Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:620. 



224 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

iture and books to the amount of my salary, or nearly so, 
up to this time the first opportunity after this. I have pur- 
posed to write you on the subject of the manners and cus- 
toms and the general character of the people and, from time 
to time, give a general description of the various detached 
portions of the country, and the present embarassments 
which our colony have to encounter, but this I cannot do at 
this time. I will simply give my testimony in general terms 
to the climate. After having spent two years and a half 
below the Cascade Mountains, I think I have never ex- 
perienced so salubrious a climate, even in Vermont or Massa- 
chusetts, and never in my life have I seen so few persons 
suffering under the influence of disease, in proportion to the 
number of population. This remark holds emphatically true 
on the coast. Slight colds seem to be the only prevailing 
disease, except it be contagious diseases. The measles have 
prevailed among us this winter and have swept off a very 
considerable number of the natives, who have suffered long 
from the venereal. Our soil is generally productive and 
yields a generous return to the labors of the husbandman. 
Yet it is not to be forgotten that we are far removed from 
the civilized world and consequently the few merchants in 
Oregon sell their goods of a very ordinary quality at very 
exorbitant prices, often one, two and three hundred per cent 
and, in some instances, more than a thousand per cent in 
advance of the first cost, aimong which I will name castings, 
edged tools, nails and all iron wares, coffee, cotton, cloth, 
leather boots and shoes, hats, cotton and woolen cloth. As 
yet there is no competition in trade. Much has been said 
and written of the changes of the mouth of the Columbia. 
I will venture to remark, upon the best authority, that the 
harbor within the mouth of the Columbia is one of the easiest 
of access and the safest in all North America. The last fifty 
times the bar has been crossed with no other accident than 
the loss of the anchor of the brig Henry. For further i:)roof 
on this subject, I would refer you to Mr. Blain's letter to 
Honorable Thomas Benton, published in his three days' 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 225 

speech in the U. S. Senate on the subject, "The United 
States' Title to Oregon in 1846." The pubhshing of that let- 
ter in the commercial periodicals in our Atlantic cities would 
contribute something to the encouraging of commerce in 
Oregon. 

We hope to organize an association in June next in the 
Willamette Valley.''*^ We are beginning to need one or two 
more efficient missionaries in the Willamette Valley. I have 
chosen my position as advantageously as I could near the 
mouth of the Columbia and promise seems to indicate that it 
is too important to be abandoned. The population is gradu- 
ally, but constantly, increasing. We have no doubt but the 
government will make the first national improvements at the 
mouth of the Columbia, and we think it rather probable that 
the commercial town will be near the mouth of the river. 
These considerations have exerted no small influence in the 
decisions I have made. At this time we have no other min- 
ister in the county and there is labor sufficient to occupy 
the time of one man, although we are farther from the main 
settlements on the W^illamette than is desirable. We need 
practical, active, common sense preachers, with warm hearts 
and sound minds, and the churches will soon be able and 
willing to contribute something for their support. 

March 25th. — The indications of divine favor appear to 
wear a favorable aspect and another of my neighbors seems 
not far from the Kingdom of Heaven. Tomorrow is the Sab- 
bath and we hope and pray that the Spirit's pow'er may ac- 
company the preached Word. 

Br. Johnson is making some efforts to build a meeting 
house in Oregon City. I have not yet learned with what 
success. He will probably write you the particulars.^"*^ Br. 
Mncent Snelling should be aided, if your Board can make 



146 For the organization of the association, see the letter of Sept. 20, 1848, and 
Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:18. 

147 This building, the first Baptist meeting house west of the Rocky Mountains, 
was completed late in 1848, or early in 1849. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:6. See 
also the diary of the author dated July 2, 1848, and enclosed in the letter of 
March 1, 1849. The building was situated on Thirteenth and Main streets. 



226 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

an appropriation for him to labor with the Yam Hill church 
and the churches in that part of the Valley. Should our next 
immigration be large, as it probably will, we shall greatly 
need help in the ministry and a colporter to travel, preach, 
sell books, visit and address Sabbath schools. The present 
and a few coming years are of very great importance in re- 
lation to all coming time in Oregon. They will constitute 
the formative period of our Territory, both civilly and moral- 
ly. Small, immediate results will probably control interests 
of vast importance to all coming years. Our influence as a 
denomination should not be lost on the Pacific for the want 
of a few men and a little means. Your Board will not neg- 
lect Upper California. There can be little doubt but two mis- 
sionaries should be sent, as soon as you can find the men, to 
labor in the vicinity of San Francisco Bay, should that sec- 
tion of country become a territory of the U. States. ^"^^ Br. 
Ross, a member of Br. Evart's church, is there selling goods. 

I cannot close this without once more recommending to 
our Atlantic brethren, who wish to be instrumental in form- 
ing the character of some of the most important future states 
in the Union, to come and labor with us. Very soon the 
facilities for immigration will be greatly increased, and per- 
haps no new portion of our whole country will afford a more 
inviting field for usefulness and enterprise than the one 
fronting the vast Pacific. Would to God we could make 
some of our eflficient deacons and private brethren arouse to 
a conviction of duty on this subject and induce them to 
come over and help us. At the present time it will require 
less sacrifice in time and property to sail from New York or 
Boston in October or November for the mouth of the Colum- 
bia than it does to immigrate by land from Illinois and Iowa 
in the spring. The farmer leaving your port in November 
may plant and sow Oregon soil in May, without spending a 
winter on expense before he can cultivate the soil. Time 



148 Rev. O. C. Wheeler was appointed to California in 1S48 by the Home Mis- 
sion Society. Soon afterv/ard, Rev. 11. W. Read was appointed, hut stopped in 
New Mexico on his way out. Bap. Home Missions in N. Am., 1832-1882, p. 339. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 227 

admonishes me to lay down my pen. 

As ever yours, in gospel bonds, 

EZRA FISHER. 

March the 29th.— We still see increasing evidence that the 
Spirit of the Lord is over us, and although Sabbath was very 
rainy our congregation was good and solemn. We learn of 
another case in which we begin to cherish hope— a lad of 
thirteen years. Some backsliders are awakening. Our pray- 
er meetings are becoming interesting, O, for a preparation 
of heart to lead God's people into the knowledge of every 
Christian duty and to win sinners to Christ, our all com- 
passionate Saviour ! 

In view of so many uncertainties in regard to my former 
letters on board the Whiton reaching you, I think best to 
give you a bill of goods which I wish you will have pur- 
chased and forwarded at your earliest convenience. I wrote 
on board the Whiton for one set of Fuller's works. We need 
Psalmists and you may send me one dozen, unless you find 
some friends who will donate them. If second-handed, they 
would be very gratefully received. I requested you to make 
an efifort to have the A. B. Publication Soc. donate some 
books for ministers' libraries and Sunday schools and for- 
ward them to me. I also ordered at that time one bolt of 
dark caHco, ten pounds saleratus put up in an earthen or 
glass jar, one hat for me (the thread enclosed in this is the 
circumference of my head), one tin reflector for baking 
bread, 15 yards of red woolen flannel and 20 yards canton 
flannel. Please send us one cheap bureau, one good com- 
mon tea set, one set of plain knives and forks, one set of 
small dining plates, one common sized deep platter, six half- 
pint tumblers (a good article), three or four patent wooden 
pails, one ten-gallon brass kettle, bailed, one box of bar 
soap, ginger, spice, cinnamon and cloves, two pound each, 
two lbs. of best quality African capsicum, two lbs. black 
pepper, two bolts of coarse cotton sheeting, three bolts of 
good, firm, dark calico, one bolt of plaid linsey, 20 or 25 yds. 



228 CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

of yellow flannel. 12 yards of red flannel, one pilot cloth over- 
coat large enough for you, to set easy, suited to a new coun- 
tr}' and a rainy winter, 15 yards of heavy cadet cloth or dark 
colored satinet and six yards of black satinet, a good, fine 
article, four yards of black kerseymere, six pairs of colored 
woolen half hose, domestic, two pounds of woolen stocking 
yarn, two pair of women's black worsted hose, two pair of 
white cotton hose, women's; one cheap fur cap for a boy 15 
years old. two lapped leghorn bonnets, trimmed, five yards of 
Irish linen, three linen handkerchiefs, two silk pocket hand- 
kerchiefs, two black silk handkerchiefs, two brown linen table 
cloths. 10 yards of brown toweling, one glass lamp. 13 yards 
of black silk lustre alpaca. 15 yards of black cambric, and 
cotton wadding enough to stuflF one cloak, five yards of 
brov^-n holland, two pounds of candlewicking, six cakes of 
shaving soap, one pair heavy calfskin men's shoes. No. 9, two 
pair of women's shoes, calf skin. No. 4iA, two' pair of moroc- 
co shoes. No. 4, two pair of boys' shoes, heavy kip. Nos. 5 
and 6. two pair of girls' shoes, calf skin, Nos. 1 and 2, two 
pair children's calf skin, Nos. 10 and 11. Our climate is wet 
and we need thick, firm leather. Also send one school geo- 
graphy. 

March 31st. — In the purchase of these articles, you will 
please have regard to our income and the climate in which 
we live. 

Our late news from the Indian war is of a favorable char- 
acter and we hope the war will terminate in a few months 
at longest. Yet a few unfavorable occurrences may involve 
us in a general Indian warfare. Present prospects for an 
abundant wheat harvest are very flattering. I must close 
this, as the last opportunity to send it to the return party 
will be in a day or two and I have to answer several private 
letters. 

Yours with esteem, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Missionary in Clatsop Plains. Oregon. 

Received August 14, 1848. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 229 

Clatsop Plains, Clatsop County, Oregon Ter., 

Sept. the 20th, 1848. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Very Dear Br. : 

All the letters which you sent me on board the ship Ma- 
tilda were probably received on board the brig IMary Dane,^-^^ 
together with thirteen boxes of goods and books shipped on 
board the same ship. I suppose the other box was shipped 
directly to Br. Johnson, as I find it was designed for him. 
I shall forward this by the Brig Henry to the Pacific squad- 
ron now on the coast of California, hoping it will reach you ; 
yet I am in so much doubt that I shall not venture to for- 
ward my report from March 8th up to this date, which is 
now partially made out. We are expecting a government 
steamer in the mouth of the Columbia in a few weeks, by 
which I will forward you my report, together with an an- 
swer to all your inquiries. I will then write to all the socie- 
ties and individuals who have so kindly sympathized with 
us in these ends of the earth. The goods and books will 
afford us great relief and the donors will be held in grateful, 
lasting remembrance. May God reward them. 

We organized an association on the 23rd and 24th of June 
last in Tualatin Plains by the name of the Willamette Bap- 
tist Association, consisting of five churches. I spent the last 
of June and the month of July in the Willamette Valley. 
Had the subject of an institution of learning under consider- 
ation with a few of the most judicious brethren. It strikes 
me that the central part of the Willamette Valley, near the 
head of what will be steam navigation, will be the place best 
adapted to meet the wants of the present population of Ore- 
gon, and will always be the center of a heavy population. 
But we find no man who will secure a tract of land sufficient- 
ly large to meet all the wants of a literary institution unless 



149 "Mary Dare," not "Mary Dane." She belonged to the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany and arrived from the Hawaiian Islands, where she had probably received these 
goods from the "Matilda," the latter part of August, 1848. Uancroft, Hist, of Ore. 
11:43. 



230 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

I go and buy or take a claim and donate the half of it to the 
denomination and enter upon the work of commencing and 
sustaining a school in connection with preaching. But in 
that event I must measurably abandon this point, which we 
feel is of vast importance prospectively. Probably $100 or 
$200 would purchase such a claim of 640 acres as would be 
desirable. But our laws in Oregon require actual residence 
within one year after recording such claim. I have been in 
great anxiety on this subject. One year more may probably 
put such an opportunity beyond our reach without a very 
considerable sum of money. Neither myself nor family have 
any inclination to change our place, unless we see a strong 
probability of advancing the general interests of religion by 
it. I can secure a tolerably eligible situation in the vicinity 
of the mouth of the Columbia River, but at present it is re- 
mote from the great portion of the population, yet eventually 
I think it will become a commanding central point. But it 
will be difficult to induce our brethren to take this view on 
the subject. While this subject has been engrossing my anx- 
ious care, our whole community has been perfectly convulsed 
with the rumor of much gold in the valleys and hills of Cali- 
fornia.^-'^^ The report has been often repeated and enlarged 
upon till more than half of the men of our Territory are 
either digging gold or on the way in quest of the treasure. 
The region in which it is found is variously represented as 
being from 120 to 200 miles in length and about 70 in 
breadth, and it is said that no limits have yet been found. 
Pure gold is found everywhere where the diggers break the 
earth and the amount a man procures per day varies from 
$10 worth to $240. The gold bears the appearance of having 
been fused and congealed in irregular forms and various 
sized pieces, from very small pieces (in form resembling 
wheat bran) to those of more than four pounds' weight. 
Silver, quicksilver, platina, and even diamonds, are reported 



150 The news of the discovery of gold in California first reached Oregon early 
in August, 1848. Bancroft. Hist, of Ore. 1:42, 43. The account of the emigration 
of able-bodied men from Oregon to California is corroborated by contemporaries. 
Ibid. 43. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 231 

to have been found in this gold region ; also iron ore, con- 
taining from 80 to 90 per cent of iron. I never saw so ex- 
cited a community. Gold is the rage, and it is to be feared 
that the farming interests in Oregon will sufi'er immensely ; 
and all our manufacturing, commercial, social, civil, moral 
and religious interests must suffer for years. Indeed I think 
a greater calamity to our colony could hardly have been sent. 
California will fill up as by magic with a heterogeneous mass 
from every nation and tribe. Our congregations are fast 
waning. But we suppose we shall receive accessions from 
the States to fill up in part the places vacated. Provisions 
on the Pacific coast must be scarce in less than eighteen 
months. Numbers of our brethren have gone to spend the 
winter at the gold mines and others will go in the spring, 
probably to make a home. You will see by this that no time 
should be lost by your Board in securing the labors of two 
or three efficient ministers for California. We feel that we, 
more than ever before, need grace to direct in these times of 
trial. God no doubt has a providence in this. May we so im- 
prove under these trials that they shall eventuate in the 
promotion of the great interests of Zion, both here and in the 
ends of the world. Tomorrow morning I leave for the Will- 
amette Valley. Our brethren in Tualatin Plains have a 
protracted meeting appointed and I am strongly solicited to 
attend. But I must go with a heavy heart. Perhaps half 
the brethren there have gone for gold. I fear we shall labor 
in vain. Gold at this time is the people's god and how shall 
we be able to present the glories of the Redeemer's character 
in so attractive a light as to win the affections of those en- 
chanted with the immediate prospects of wealth? But God 
reigns and the hearts of all men are in His hands and He 
can use the feeblest instrumentality to show forth His 
praise. But I should not have chosen this time for special 
labor. 

I remain your unworthy brother, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received June 11, 1849. 



2Z2 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Clatsop Plains, Oregon Ten, Sept. 19, 1848. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. Al. Soc. 
Very dear Br. : 

Your three letters under date of July 15, 1847, July 17, 
1847, and October 15th, 1847, together with one bearing date 
Feb. 16th, 1847, with an envelope subscribed Sept. 25th, 1847, 
were received on the 5th inst. by the Hudson Bay Company's 
brig Alary Dare, together with 13 boxes marked with a dia- 
mond and numbered 1 to 10 and A, B and D. I think the 
box marked *'C" was shipped direct to Br. Johnson from 
Honolulu. Your letters cheered our spirits and the goods 
and books were most welcome messengers. 

Beside the above named letters, I have received from you 
since I left Rock Island, April 12th, 1845, the following let- 
ters; one bearing dates Jan. 19th, and 24th, 1846, one com- 
mission No. 1081, April 1st, 1846, one letter Oct. 26th, 1846, 
and one 31st and November 13th, 1846, and one commission, 
No. 1170, April l.st, 1847. 

I wrote you about the 15th of July, 1847, by the ship Bru- 
tus, to the care of Elder Gary, who assured me he would de- 
liver the letters in person; 1 next wrote you about the 1st 
of November, 1847, by the bark Whiton, Capt. Gelston, in 
both which I think I gave you a brief report of labors. I 
wrote again on the 8th of March, 1848, and reported labor 
from Nov. 1, 1847, to March 8th, 1848. These three sheets 
were forwarded by last spring's return party overland. I 
then reported nineteen weeks, preached twenty sermons, at- 
tended four prayer meetings, two religious conferences, pre- 
paratory to the constitution of a church, visited 40 families 
and individuals, two common schools, traveled 147 miles, 
one 3^oung married brother a licensed preacher in my field ; 
monthly concert of prayer is observed; $14 paid for my sal- 
ary ; two Sabbath schools, 42 scholars, 10 teachers, one 
school, 100 volumes in the library ; the other 20 vols. I have 
one Bible class of eight members. We were then about to be 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 233 

constituted in a few days in Clatsop Plains. Had l)een en- 
gaged in building a hewed log school house 18 feet by 24 for 
the purpose of school and public worship on the Sab. I had 
spent two weeks in that work. 

I will now proceed to report from March 8th, 1848, to Sept. 
19th, 1848. My field comprises Clatsop Plains and xA.storia. 
I statedly supply two stations in these plains. My place of 
residence is Clatsop Plains, the community of Astoria as yet 
being too small to justify my fixing my location there. My 
post office is Astoria. 

I have labored 28 weeks since my last report, preached 37 
sermons, delivered two temperance lectures, attended 24 
prayer meetings, visited religiously 96 families and individu- 
als, visited five common schools, obtained 22 signatures to 
the temperance pledge, baptized none, assisted in the con- 
stitution of the Clatsop church, no ordination, traveled to and 
from my appointments 611 miles, seven persons were re- 
ceived by letter into the constitution of the church and one 
to the Santiam church. By experience none. 

We know of no conversions since about the time of our 
last report. About that time three were hopefully converted. 
No young men preparing for the ministry. Monthly concert 
of prayer is observed at one of my stations. My people have 
paid during this period nothing for home missions, domestic 
missions, foreign missions, Bible or any other benevolent 
societies; for my salary $12. Have so far advanced in our 
school house that we have a comfortable place for worship. 
Connected with my stations are two Sunda}^ schools, ten 
teachers and 40 scholars, 125 volumes in each library. Bible 
class part of the time in the school ; six scholars. I wrote 
in my last informing you of an interesting state of religious 
feeling with several of our citizens. I sanguinely hoped dur- 
ing the months of March, April and May that we should 
have the satisfaction of administering the ordinance of bap- 
tism to three or four men, but soon the Cayuse war called 
of¥ one young man, and in a few weeks two others who gave 



234 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

evidence of a change being wrought in them removed to the 
Willamette Valley and the favorable omens passed ofif with- 
out any in-gatherings to the church. Our congregations, 
however, have generally been good for the amount of popu- 
lation. Our Sunday schools have been very uniform and our 
children appear unusually interested. 

Feb. 2nd, 1849.i5i— Dear Brother Hill : The want of direct 
conveyance to New York has occasioned this long delay and 
I will now make out my report from Sept. 19, 1848, up to 
this time, making 19 weeks. 

Preached 24 sermons, delivered no lectures on moral and 
benevolent subjects, attended 18 prayer meetings, four cove- 
nant meetings, one temperance meeting, visited 49 families 
and individuals, three common schools ; baptized none ; ob- 
tained two signatures to the temperance pledge ; organized 
no church, no ordination, traveled 412 miles to and from my 
appointments ; received no persons by letter, none by experi- 
ence ; no person preparing for the ministry. Monthly con- 
cert of prayer is observed at one station. My people have 
paid nothing for missionary or other benevolent societies. 
Paid $45 for my salary. We have one Sunday school, six 
teachers, 24 scholars, 125 volumes in the library. No Bible 
class. I attend our Sunday school and usually explain the 
lessons ; distribute tracts and pamphlets among the children. 
We have entirely separated from the Presbyterians in our 
S. S. and congregation, or rather they have separated from 
us. Our congregations have diminished during the winter 
from the fact that numbers of our citizens are in the mines 
in California. Yet the people at home are quite as attentive 
to the preaching of the Word as usual. Part of our church 
will soon move to California and all the rest will spend next 
summer at least in the mines, except my family, and this is 
somewhat a specimen of the gold excitement throughout 
Oregon. But a small portion of the men will remain at 



151 The letter of Sept. 19. 1848, was inclosed with this of Feb. 2, 1849, and 
with those of Sept. 20th and Oct. 19th, 1848, was not received until past the middle 
of June, 1849. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 235 

home during the summer, except as they return to harvest 
their crops in July, Aug. and Sept. Many famiHes will prob- 
ably leave for California, among which will be found more 
than a fair proportion of business men. Immediately on the 
confirmation of the report of much gold in California our 
Methodist brethren sent one preacher^" overland to the 
mines, and I understand that he is now preaching part of the 
time in San Francisco. 

Yours, EZRA FISHER, 

Received June 19, 1849. Missionary in Oregon. 



Clatsop Plains on the Pacific Shore, near Astoria, 

October 19, 1848. 
Beloved Br. Hill: 

On opening the most valuable box, No. 9, shipped from 
New York to me on board the ship Matilda, Oct. 15th, 1847, 
I found an inventory without either name or place attached 
to it, but we infer that the letter was directed to you and not 
to either of us from the sentence appended to the invoice in 
the following words: "The difference of $2.34 between the 
invoice and the letter to Brother Hill is owing to articles 
having been brought in after the letter was sent." The box 
contained the only shawl, boys' cloth cap, and a piece of bed- 
ticking that was sent us. The box was valued at $66.34. We 
regret that we have neither name nor place attached to the 
invoice, because it would afford us great pleasure to have 
addressed a line of grateful acknowledgement to the donors. 
The box was thankfully received and contained a number of 
articles of woolen clothing which are especially valuable in 
our climate , so cool in summer and so wet in winter. Any 
s-econd-hand woolen clothes, when but partially worn, are 
always very useful where sheep are scarce and looms none. 



152 Who was sent to California, the editors have not been able to find; Rev. 
William Roberts and Rev. J. H. Wilbur stopped there several weeks in 1847, on 
their way from New York to Oregon, and organized a church in San Francisco — 
the first Methodist church on the Pacific Coast south of Oregon. In 1849, Rev. 
William Taylor and Rev. Isaac Owen were the regular appointees of the Con- 
ference in California. — H. K. Himes, Missionary History of the Pacific Northwest, 
p. 371, 386. 



lit CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE 

We have not more than two or three looms in all our Terri- 
tory. Thanks to Br. and Dr. Allen for the Mothers' Journal, 
the forwarding of the paragraph Bible and Testament and 
other favors. I shall answer his letter before long. We re- 
ceived a bundle of 100 volumes of new Sunday school books 
from the Juvenile Soc. of the Sunday school in the Stanton 
Street Baptist Church. I shall answer Br. Cowan's letter 
as soon as time will permit. We received a package of new 
Sunday school books, containing 300 volumes, and we regret 
to say we found no name nor bill attached to them, as we 
should be pleased to respond to the donors direct. We know 
they were obtained through your influence in the City. We 
regard them a valuable acquisition, especially as we have 
been obliged to sustain our school in this place with so few 
volumes of the A. Tract Soc.'s publications and other books 
less adapted to the capacities of children. We have been 
w'aiting and praying a whole year for just such an auxiliary. 
May the blessings of these ends of the earth come on the 
donors in the great day of the Lord ! The periodicals, espe- 
cially of 1846 and 1847, were most gratefully received and 
we are still feasting richly upon their contents, whenever 
we have an hour of leisure, and we feast not alone. All our 
neighbors, and especially our Christian friends, find much 
to entertain them. The annual reports are all valuable, and 
we only regret that we have no more, as we have frequent 
occasions to meet prejudices surely through these matters of 
fact. You speak of procuring and forwarding a box of school 
books. Next to sustaining the gospel, you will render us the 
most essential service in a work of this kind. It is very much 
to be desired that the present system of popular school books 
in the States be introduced into all our schools in Oregon. 
And while so much effort is being made in the old states in 
behalf of popular education in the Mississippi Valley, I trust 
a voice will be lifted up in behalf of the Pacific borders. 
Would to God that we had a Slade to plead our cause on this 
subject in our Atlantic cities and towns. The importance of 
this subject is daily increasing our responsibilities and the 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 237 

rage of the gold mania is diminishng public sympathy for 
the general diffusion of knowledge. At present our old states 
must assume a part of this responsibility, or it is to be feared 
that Oregon and California will prove a curse to the Union. 
We want your books and, as far as practicable, the very 
same kind and date as those which are so richly blessing 
your whole Atlantic slope. But with books, we equally 
need teachers of moral worth and, if possible, of vital piety. 
Would to God we could make our feelings understood in the 
eastern and middle states, and we are sure we should see 
every ship from your ports to our coast crowded with men, 
and women too, who would become co-workers with us in 
this and every noble, philanthropic work. Could you but 
visit us and see and feel for yourself all we see and feel 
daily of our peculiar relations and temptations, you would 
strike a note that would not only call out a few boxes of 
goods to clothe the families of the missionaries already in 
the field, but would search out from their quiet, comfortable 
homes many a useful brother to share with us the toils and 
privations and, I will add too, the honors under God of trans- 
ferring to these western shores the blessings of general edu- 
cation and spiritual, practical religion. W^e are in perishing 
need of help. We need just such men as give efficiency to 
the churches at home. Then under God we can move for- 
ward in the cause of education and Christianity. But we 
will not despond: we have counted the cost; God is our 
helper and He has the hearts of His people in His hands. 
But I must close. 

As ever yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 

On Margin. — Help must be sent to California without de- 
lay if possible. I should certainly have spent part of this 
winter at San Francisco, Monteray and perhaps have visited 
the mines, if I could have raised the funds to have paid my 
passage without digging at the mines. 

Received June 18, 1849. 



238 CORRESPOXDEX'CE OF THE 

Clatsop Plains, Oregon Ter., Feb. 3d, 1849. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill. 
Dear Brother : 

I closed my last yesterday on the subject of California 
and will continue to remark. I understand by Capt. of the 
Undine that Mr. Hunt, a Presbyterian minister, is preaching 
at San Francisco. ^^-^ Besides these two, I think there is not 
a Protestant preacher in Upper California. In view of the 
extraordinary evolution of things in Oregon and the vast in- 
flux of population in California and the fact that a large por- 
tion of our Baptist brethren of Oregon will be at the mines 
throughout most of the summer, and in view of the strong 
solicitude of our members in Clatsop about to move to Cali- 
fornia that I should visit that territory at least next summer, 
and the advice of all the members of the church, and in view 
of the loss of the goods shipped on board the bark Undine 
the 21st of June, 1848, I have thought it might be my duty 
to visit the mines the coming spring and dig long enough to 
raise means to pay my passage and meet the present press- 
ing wants of my family, spend a few weeks in the American 
settlements and towns and return home perhaps in July or 
August. I do not know but this course may be regarded by 
your Board as outstepping the bounds of your instructions, 
but I feel a strong conviction that great and sudden and un- 
expected changes justify extraordinary action. I do not 
know that I have the first desire to dig in the mines one day 
and, if I could leave my family comfortable and go by water 
to San Francisco and other towns on the Bay and the mines, 
with no other care than that for God's glory on the Pacific 
Coast, my care would be greatly relieved. But I have not 
the means, and I cannot leave that interest without being 
able to make known the wants of that rapidly accumulating 
mass to your Board. I will keep an account of the amount 
of time lost in traveling and digging, if any, and report to 
your Board, or, should your Board disapprove of the enter- 



153 This was Thomas Dwight Hunt, of Honolulu, a Congregationalist. Ban- 
croft. Hist, of Calif. \'II -.121 . Several clergymen came in February, 1849. Ibid. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 239 

prise and think the cause of Christ better served by discon- 
tinuing my appointment the present year, I shall acquiesce, 
with the privilege of continuing a correspondence with you. 
I trust, however, that your Board will acquiesce in my views. 
I am quite sure, if you were here and knew all I know of 
the state of things in California, you would take the most 
prompt measures to acquaint yourselves with the wants of 
that territory and meet them. Oregon must be measurably 
stationary for a time,^^"* while California will swarm with 
people and overflow with wealth, gambling and dissipation, 
and, unless our churches act with promptness and devotion 
and liberality, these inexhaustible treasures are given over 
into the hands of the Prince of Devils, California will be 
morally lost and will prove a capital scourge to our nation. 
It is only relatively that Oregon sinks in importance. No 
doubt she will become three-fold as valuable to the nation 
as she would have been, if gold had not been found in Cali- 
fornia. ^^^ Although all is in confusion in Oregon and our 
citizens and members are now going and coming so that it is 
difficult efifecting anything permanent here just at this time. 
yet be assured that we need more laborers even here, that 
the efforts already made may be followed up, and under 
God we may expect a rich return. This, like all other ex- 
citements, will sooner or later settle and people and wealth 
will flow back to Oregon with astonishing rapidity. We now 
need at least two efficient young men in Oregon who can be 
well sustained by your Board, and I know that an able young 
man now placed in San Francisco and liberally supported, 
another at Sacramento City (Sutter's Fort), another in the 
American settlements and a fourth at the mines would find 
profitable work in promoting the interests of Zion under the 



154 This was approximately true. 

The immigration to Oregon in 1849 was about 400; in 1850, about 2000; in 
1851, about 1500; in 1852, about 2500; while the increase in California during these 
years was about ten or twenty times this number. F. G. Young, The Oregon Trail, 
in Oregon Hist. Soc. Quar. 1:370. This estimate probably includes only those who 
came overland by the Oregon Trail. 

155 The influx of gold-seekers to California gave Oregon a market for its lumber 
and farm products. Returning miners brought gold dust with them, and the au- 
thor's prophecy of Oregon's share in the prosperity of California was fulfilled. Ban- 
croft, Hist, of Ore. 11:48-59. 



240 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Captain of our salvation. I wish you to remember that the 
formation of our civil and religious character is at. hand and 
vice in all its forms must reign, unless Zion's sons are awake. 
Just think of the advantageous position of San Francisco in 
relation to the whole Pacific trade. Where is there another 
such point to be occupied in all North America? Now hold 
the map before you. Think of the mountains of gold behind 
her, the influx of population from Upper and Lower Cali- 
fornia bordering the coast, the Pacific islands, and even 
China, swarming hither for gold, and then let me ask our 
dear brethren, Are we prepared to leave this point unoccu- 
pied for the want of a few hundred dollars? This picture is 
no fiction. Already the principal men of the Sandwich Is- 
lands are said to be in the mines digging gold, and I am in- 
formed that there are some from China, too. And how long 
will it be before almost every nation in Europe will be repre- 
sented there? All who go to the mines and return say the 
gold is inexhaustible and yields from one ounce of pure gold 
to six or eight pounds per day to a single laborer. What a 
point then is San Francisco for the men of God to take with 
Bibles and devotional books and tracts, sending them as upon 
the wings of the wind ! Will your Board censure me then 
for pursuing the plan laid down in this sheet the coming 
summer, in the midst of this unsettled state of things in 
Oregon ? 

I received yours of Jan. 22, 1848, giving the sum total of 
three boxes of goods shipped on board the Bark Undine, 
Thos. S. Baker, Master, on the 21st of January, 1848. The 
three boxes with cartage and insurance amounted to $122.74. 
The Undine is now in the Columbia. I understand that she 
suffered a partial wreck in passing Cape Horn and her goods 
were part thrown overboard and part sold as damaged goods 
somewhere on the Pacific coast south of this. Thus you see, 
dear brother, that God has been pleased, graciously no doubt, 
to deprive me and family of our dependence in clothing for 
the ensuing year, and it must probably be ten months before 
you will be able to recover the insurance and place the goods 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 24'l 

within my reach. The letters enclosed in the boxes with the 
periodicals are of course lost. I shall be obliged to write an- 
other sheet and enclose in this. I therefore close this by 
subscribing myself your unworthy brother, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — Want of time prevents my writing more by this 
opportunity to California to meet the first mail steamer. But 
I will give you extracts from my Journal soon, some brief 
geographical notices, etc. 

Yours, E. F. 

Received Tune 19, 1849. 



Clatsop Plains, Feb. 5th, 1849. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill. 
Dear Brother: 

That there may be no mistake in relation to the boxes 
shipped on board the bark Undine on the 21st day of Jan., 
1848, I will give you the copy of the inventory as forwarded 
by you. . . . 

It appears that Thos. S. Baker sailed as Master and that 
Capt. James Bishop & Co. were proprietors. The Undine 
has changed owners and masters. It is to be hoped you have 
learned of the disaster and secured the insurance and for- 
warded me the same articles in kind before this time. But 
if not, I trust on the receipt of this you will secure the in- 
surance and forward the same articles in kind and quality, 
excepting the children's shoes. You will please get them all 
one size larger at least, as they are growing fast. I wrote on 
board the bark Whiton in the fall of 1847 ordering the fol- 
lowing: One set of Fuller's works, one dozen of the Psalm- 
ist, one bolt of dark calico, ten lbs. of saleratus, one hat, one 
tin reflector for baking bread, fifteen yds. of red flannel and 
twenty yds. of canton flannel. 

On the 8th of March, 1848, accompanying a report of nine- 
teen weeks. I ordered the following articles : (This was sent 
overland and I fear has not reached vou. If vou have not 



242 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

forwarded it, please omit the bureau and in the place send 
me a good cooking stove and pipe, as we are not able to have 

both at present.) . . . 

Please send me the following articles, if I have the amount 
due me. Bill ordered Feb. 5, 1849 : Six large tin pans, one 
set candle moulds, 2 tin pails with lids, six and eight quarts, 
10 pint tin cups, 2 quart do., 2 tin coffee pots, one-half box 
of glass, eight by ten, 1 keg of nails, 8's, 6's and 4's, equal 
parts, 15 lbs. nails, 10 penny, 1 nail hatchet with handle, 1 
ax, 1 spade, with steel blade, 1 hoe, 1 small, plain looking 
glass, 1 set of dining plates, 1 set butter do., 1 pitcher, 2 
quarts, 1 bolt cotton sheeting, heavy, 2 bolts dark, firm calico, 
16 yds. black alpaca, or something suitable for ladies' dresses 
and cloaks, 12 yds. black cambric, 12 sheet wadding, 14 yds. 
good bed ticking, half lb. good black sewing silk, 1 good 
cooking stove and furniture with 7 or 8 joints of pipe, 6 
ivory fine combs, 6 doz. spools white cotton thread, 1 ream 
good cap writing paper, 1 box vegetable shaving soap, 1 pen- 
knife, 1 pocket do., 1 traveler's inkstand and 6 common cheap 
ones, ^56 1 pair heavy calfskin boots. No. 10, 1 do. shoes, No. 9. 

N. B.— Samuel N. Castle, agent A. R. C. F. M. for Sand- 
wich Islands Mission, forwarded the 13 boxes shipped by you 
on the Matilda, charging $20.73 to me and to Br. Johnson 
$1.22, stating that he should draw on you for the same. Br. 
Johnson requests that you should take his proportion of this 
freight from the Islands to Astoria from your account 
charged to me and charge the same to him, which will prob- 
ably be about ten dollars. I have not the separate bills of 
freight as charged to him and me from N. Y. to the Sand- 
wich Islands. You have on your books and will confer a 
favor on me by apportioning the amount, $21.95, between us. 
Cut the lower part of this half sheet and you have my entire 
bill. 

P. S. — Send no more goods by the Sandwich Islands. Bill 
continued from the other page: 1 bolt Kentucky jean, 1 pair 



156 These cheap inkstands were probably for school use. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 243 

thick, men's shoes, No. 6, 2 pair stout, ladies' morocco shoes, 
Nos. 4 and 4i/^, 1 pair misses' shoes, calf skin. No. 2^, 1 do 
No. 1. 

Yours respectfully, 
.... EZRA FISHER. 



Clatsop Plains, Oregon Ter., Feb. 8th, 1849. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill. 
Dear Brother: 

Yours under date of October 15th, 1847, presented some of 
your views of the importance of making an early attempt to 
lay the foundation for a denominational school which should 
eventually mature into a college and theological seminary. I 
was greatly cheered to learn that some of our Eastern breth- 
ren were beginning to think on that subject. This is a cause 
which is far from being among the least of my cares. And, 
first, from selfish motives I am called upon to be awake to 
this work. My rising family and that of a respectable num- 
ber of our brethren imperiously demand that something be 
done, and that soon, or our children must be distressingly 
neglected. And, secondly, such is the character of a large 
portion of our Oregon Baptists that, as a denomination, we 
cannot be efficient and secure a great amount of public con- 
fidence till we can find some benevolent enterprise at home 
in which we can enlist their sympathies. This will be likely 
to be a work around which all will rally from personal in- 
terest more readily than any other benevolent enterprise now 
before the Christian public. Through this medium I would 
hope to call into our Territory more liberal-minded men 
from the older states. It is true that we have a respectable 
number of Baptists who appreciate the importance of an edu- 
cated ministry and who pray for the universal spread of the 
gospel by the direct effort of the church, yet the larger por- 
tion of our brethren have never seen it so done in Israel. 

Thirdly, we owe it to our rising territory to perform our 
part in the formation of our national character. I spent four 



244 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

or five weeks last summer in traveling through the Willam- 
ette Valley ^^^ preaching and privately laying this subject 
before our brethren, and I rejoiced much to find so many 
who responded cheerfully to the views that I presented. I 
then thought some central point in that valley on the banks 
of the Willamette, or near it. in view of the circumstances, 
would be the most desirable position. Afterward, when we 
heard a report of much gold in the vicinity of the Columbia 
River, '-'^ both Br. Johnson and myself thought we might as 
well make an effort on these Plains (Clatsop). W'e, how- 
ever, learned that the parties who went to Powder River to 
explore for gold brought home nothing but mica, or pyrates 
of iron, and the whole tide of immigration and commerce 
turned towards California. I, therefore, was compelled to 
yield to the popular opinion everywhere rife that Oregon 
must unavoidably be thrown back at least two or three years. 
Our lovely little church in Clatsop Plains will every one but 
my own family go to California, and all think it is my dut}' 
to go this summer, and some are very solicitous that I move 
my family there. In view of all these circumstances, nothing 
more can be done the present season than to fix on a loca- 
tion, and that is somewhat hazardous. Yet with the present 
development of the country, both here and in California. I 
think, if anything is done this season, I shall be strongly in- 
clined to favor the commencement of this work somewhere 
near the point on the Willamette where steam navigation will 
terminate, say about 70 or 80 miles above Oregon City. I 
am strengthened in these views from the facts that the Will- 
amette Valley is the largest body of rich farming land in 
Oregon, and the scener}^ remarkably picturesque; that the 
large bodies of farming land on the Umpqua, the Clamet^^^ 
and Rogue rivers will be the next settled after the Willam- 
ette, and that there must be a great thoroughfare opened 
from the falls of the Willamette River to the gold mines on 



157 There was as yet no uniformity in the spelling of this name. See note 71. 

158 These discoveries were not largely utilized until the sixtit^ — G. H. Mimes. 

159 Klamath. See note 100. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 245 

the Sacramento River in California before many years. 
Wagons already travel it with convenience. 

You ask how a site may be secured? I know of but one 
way at present, and that is to find one, two or more brethren 
interested in the enterprise to take or purchase claims cov- 
ering the site wanted and then pledge themselves either to 
donate or sell the necessary amount of land to a board in 
trust for the denomination. 

j\Iy feelings last summer were so much enlisted on this 
subject that I became half-inclined to make a claim in refer- 
ence to this specific object, change the field of my labor and 
pledge half of said claim to the denomination. I, however, 
thought of the time and money expended by your Board 
to sustain me at the mouth of the river and of the little 
feeble church here, and, by the advice of Br. Johnson and 
the absence of all counsel from your Board, I concluded to 
let matters rest for the present. 

Now this complete confusion into which the entire com- 
munity, both in Oregon and in California, are thrown by 
means of much gold being found in the latter territory will 
probably compel me to take my family to the Willamette 
Valley and work toward this object, in connection with that 
greatest of all works, the preaching of the gospel, or comply 
with the wishes of some of the best members of this church 
and remove to the vicinity of San Francisco Bay; or it is 
possible, but hardly probable, some good brethren may move 
to this place. I leave this matter with the great Head of 
the Church and trust His providences may mark out plainly 
the path of duty. I need much the advice of your Board 
on this subject, and trust I shall have it in three or four 
months. From the present movement of things I think a 
large portion of the enterprise and business talent of Oregon 
will be thrown upon the Sacramento River and San Fran- 
cisco Bay. What proportion of our Oregon brethren and 
their families. I cannot now tell. But of one thing I am con- 
fident, ministerial help and educational help must be sent to 



246 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Oregon and California from the States or little will be done. 
My lungs are beginning to fail me ; Br. Johnson has a numer- 
ous family and cannot do everything; the means necessary to 
sustain a family in Oregon the present year will be nearly 
twice as much as it was last year, and it is exceedingly doubt- 
ful whether the liberality of the people on the Pacific will 
keep pace with the increase of their wealth unless they have 
the gospel sanctified to them. Sin and iniquity are making 
fearful strides in California since the commencement of gold 
digging, if all reports be true. How exceedingly desirable 
that these unparalleled treasures be consecrated to the ser- 
vice of the Lord in the universal spread of the gospel. 

As ever I subscribe myself your unworthy brother, 

EZRA FISHER. 

Received July 3, 1849. 



Clatsop Plains, Oregon, March 1, 1849. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill. 
Dear Brother: 

In this I will give you a journal of my tour through the 
Willamette Valley last June and July. 

June 13th, 1848. — Preached at my north station, four miles 
from my residence, to an attentive assembly and attended S. 
S. and Bible class. We seemed to enjoy more than a usual 
degree of the divine Presence. In the evening walked three 
miles to the landing for these plains, seven miles southwest 
from Astoria. Here we spent an hour in social prayer with 
six or eight professors, among whom were two who have re- 
cently professed a hope in Christ. Conversed with Mr. L. 
on the importance of publicly putting on Christ by baptism. 
He assured me that he is only waiting for the returning 
health of his wife that she may accompany him. 

19th. — Left the Scippanouin^^o landing for the Willamette, 
in company with a party of fifteen, in a large canoe. The 
morning was delightfullv serene and the Columbia, here 



160 Skipanon, on Clatsop Plains. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 247 

eight miles in width, formed one vast mirror reflecting the 
light, the imagery of towering hills and stately forest trees 
everywhere skirting and often overhanging its bold and pre- 
cipitous shores. This day by alternate sailing and rowing or 
paddling, we made our way up the stream forty-three miles ; 
and, just as the sun was concealing his golden beams behind 
the accumulation of lofty hills, we sought and found a camp 
on a rocky shore at the base of a steep mountain side loaded 
with heavy forests and almost impenetrably bestudded with 
vines and shrubbery. Here we kindled our fire, took such re- 
freshments as we had provided for the journey, committed 
ourselves to the care of Him who spreadeth out the heavens 
as a tent and laid our weary bodies down under the starry 
canopy to rest for the night, as is our uniform custom in 
journeying on this mighty river. 

22d. — This morning at eight reached Linnton, a small town 
of six or eight log cabins situated on the west bank of the 
Willamette six miles above its junction with the Columbia 
and twelve S. W. from Fort Vancouver. ^^^ Here I left my 
party for Tualatin Plains, ten miles S. W. My way lay over 
high hills and through a dense forest. About twelve reached 
the house of my esteemed friend and brother, David T. 
Lenox. Here I was received with truly Christian hospitality. 
Four of his children have publicly put on Christ during the 
last year. In the afternoon visited the school which I taught 
in the summer of '46, now taught by a worthy Br. Ford, 
formerly from N. Y. 

23rd. — Met delegates from six churches, and by request 
preached on the importance of brotherly love. Was called 
to the chair and, after long but friendly deliberation on the 
subject of the connection of churches with missionary bodies, 
an association was organized, consisting of five churches, 
under the name of the Willamette Baptist Association, leav- 
ing each church free to act at pleasure on the missionary 



161 Ivinnton was laid out in the winter of 1843-4, and a road cut out from it 
to Tualatin Plains. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:415. It languished in competition 
with Portland. 



248 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

question. Oh, how deeply ought Christians to humble them- 
selves in view of the thought that so many of our dear breth- 
ren are so slow to awake and put on their strength and 
come up to the great battlefield of Zion's King! May the 
love of the gospel soon bring all our churches to a union of 
sentiment and action on this great practical subject. 

24th. — This day has been one of hard labor and, I trust, 
of some humble, fervent prayer. It does my soul good to 
see some manifest marks of discipleship in the midst of 
error. A spirit of kindness has been maintained while there 
has been very little yielding of principle. On the whole, the 
best work done this day has been the discussing and acting 
on the subject of the importance of liberating the ministry 
from worldly care and encouraging them to work in Christ's 
harvest field. Br. Vincent Snelling was appointed to travel 
and preach twelve months in the Willamette Valley, and 
nearly $100 was subscribed on the spot for that object. This 
is our commencement of the book of acts. May its records 
be greatly enlarged each coming year. 

25th. — Sabbath. Preached to an unusually large concourse 
for Oregon from Heb. 12:28, "Wherefore we, receiving a 
Kingdom which cannot be moved," etc. Theme, Peculiarity 
and Immutability of Christ's Kingdom. Br. Johnson fol- 
lowed and continued the subject. The fixed attention of the 
congregation indicated that they were instructed on sub- 
jects of infinite moment. May God apply the word with 
saving efifect to some souls ! 

26th and 27th. — Prepared the minutes for the press and 
preached to a small collection in Tualatin Plains. 

28th. — Rode ten miles to Mr. Clark's camp ground, ^"^"^ 
where a camp meeting was commencing, and at two P. M. 
preached on the importance of relying entirely upon the 
means of divine appointment in laboring for Zion's enlarge- 
ments ; Zion's strength rests alone in Zion's King. Some seri- 
ous impressions had been made during the meeting of our 



162 The site of the present Forest Grove. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 249 

Association, and it was evident that some few souls were 
concerned for their future state. 

29th. — Rode ten miles and visited Elder Porter's^^^ family 
and affectionately recommended to the young members the 
Pearl of Great Price. 

30th. — Rode 28 miles from Tualatin Plains to Oregon City 
Country interspersed with prairie oak and lir openings and 
occasionally a belt of half a mile of heavy timber ; under- 
growth, hazel bush, some of which grows 15 feet high and 
large enough to be used for making brooms'^"* ; hills high on 
approaching the river. 

July 2d. — Preached for Br. Johnson, and after preaching 
Br. Johnson baptized a sister in the Willamette, a large con- 
course of citizens witnessing the scene, which was solemnly 
interesting. In the afternoon visited and addressed the 
Union S. school. Br. Johnson's meeting house enclosed ex- 
cept windows, but yet unpainted. 

3rd, — Rode 15 miles up the east side of the Willamette to 
the Molalla River. Visited an anti-missionary Baptist min- 
ister^^^; found him antinomian in doctrine. Spent the night 
with Br. Cornelius and wife. The plains on this stream 
(Molalla) are sufficiently large to afford a good settlement. 
Here are some eight or ten Baptist members and a church 
will probably soon be constituted. ^^^ 

4th. — Rode 25 miles through a rolling open country, inter- 
spersed with prairies. The way lay back of the main French 
settlement, the Roman stronghold of Oregon. '^^ Spent the 



163 Rev. William Porter (1803-1872) came to Oregon from Ohio in 1847 and 
settled in Washington County on a farm. He preached mostly for the West Union 
and Forest Grove churches. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. I :58. 

164 The author frequently used the hazel to make brooms and coarse brushes 
for the use of his own family. 

165 Possibly Isom Cranfill. — G. H. Himes. 

166 The date of the organization of the Molalla church, the editors have not 
been aisle to find. It was admitted to the Willamette Association in 1851 (Minutes 
of the Association of 1851), but was in existence at least as early as September, 
1849, and had been organized after this letter was written, probably in the spring 
or summer of 1849. Had it been organized by March, 1849, the author would 
probably have mentioned it in his journal, and it is mentioned in his journal of 
September, 1849, as having been organized. 

167 This French settlement is usually called French Prairie, because first set- 
tled by French Canadians formerly in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company. 
Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:70. 



250 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

night with a Br. Hunt and family, with whom I became ac- 
quainted fifteen years ago in Indiana. Br. H. is some ten 
miles from any other Baptist family of kindred spirit on the 
subject of Christian enterprise and about twelve miles from 
Salem. ^^^ How important that Christians should always, 
especially in new countries, select their place of residence 
in reference to their usefulness and Christian privileges. 

5th. — Rode ten miles to Br. Matlock's, another brother 
with whom I labored in Indiana, one and a half miles from 
Salem. 16^ Visited his family and in the afternoon visited the 
Oregon university or, in other words, the Methodist Insti- 
tute, now in operation under the superintendence of Rev. 
Mr. Wilbur.^^o His daughter performs the duty of teacher 
at present. I learn they are expecting a teacher from the 
States the coming year. The school at this time occupies 
the place of a common school, but meets the wants of the 
village and surrounding country. The buildings are of wood 
and have been erected at an expense vastly disproportionate 
to the present demands of the country. Yet, feeble as the 
school has been, doubtless it has proved a blessing to Ore- 
gon and will ultimately reward the denomination for all the 
needless expenditures. Its site is eligible, on the east bank 
of the Willamette about forty miles above Oregon City. 

6th. — Rode twenty miles up Mill Creek to the north fork 
of the Santi Am River, visited two families and attended 
the funeral of a young married lady with whom I traveled 
on our way from the States. Made a short address and of- 
fered up a prayer at the grave. 

7th. — Rode sixteen miles, after fording the river, to the 



168 Salem was laid out on lands belonging to the Oregon Institute shortly 
after the removal of the latter to Salem in 1844. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:222. 
There had been a settlement there from an earlier date. 

169 This was W. T. Matlock, who was a member of the state legislature in 
1851. History of Pacific Northwest, compiled by North Pacific History Company, 
I :326. He later lived near Clackamas Station in Clackamas County. 

170 The Oregon Institute, the forerunner of the present Willamette University, 
intended at first as a school for the children of Methodist missionaries, was organ- 
ized early in 1842. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:201-203, 222. 

Rev. James H. Wilbur, (1811-1887) came to Oregon in 1847. His daughter 
was later the wife of the Rev. St. M. Fackler, an Episcopal clergyman. — W. D. 
Fenton, Father Wilbur and His Work, in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. X, 2 ; p. 17. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 251 

middle fork and preached to an interesting collection of 
people, some of whom rode from three to twenty-five miles 
to hear preaching. 

8th. — Crossed the middle and south forks ; the latter 
stream is nearly as large as the Mohawk River. Rode 15 
miles to the church on said stream and preached at 12 (noon) 
to the church.'''! This church is situated in the midst of 
the richest and most delightful portion of Oregon. Perhaps 
a more picturesque scenery cannot be found in North Ameri- 
ca. The church is small, but its members are fast prosper- 
ing and wish to work for good while they work for them- 
selves ; and under a faithful ministry we might reasonably 
hope for happy results. This is about 65 miles above Ore- 
gon City in the center of the Willamette Valley and a few 
miles below the termination of future steam navigation, in 
the vicinity of water power to almost any extent. I was 
strongly impressed with the thought that near this place was 
perhaps the most favorable point in the whole country for 
the location of an institution of learning for our denomina- 
tion. By the recent developments of gold in California 
these convictions are strengthened. 

9th. — Brother Snelling and myself both preached and ad- 
ministered the sacrament of the supper. Congregation good 
for so new a country, but no unusual interest apparent. 

10th, 11th and 12th. — Visited; viewed the surrounding 
country. 13th. Rode 30 miles to Salem and spent the night 
with Br. Matlock. 14th. — Crossed the Willamette and rode 
about 30 miles over a rolling prairie and open country to the 
south fork of the Yam Hill; visited two families, but noth- 
ing of special interest occurred. 

15th. — Rode 14 miles. My way lay along the Yam Hill 
bottom lands ; soil luxuriantly rich and large fields of wheat 
of enormous growth were now waving their long golden ears 
to the gentle breezes that glide over the plains. Met the 



171 This was probably the Santiam Baptist Church (at Sodaville, Linn Co.), 
which had been organized by Rev. H. Johnson that same summer. Mattoon, Bap. 
An. of Ore. 1:8. 



252 CORRESPOXDENCE OF THE 

Yam Hill church at the time of their monthly meeting and 
preached on the occasion at the house of Br. ]\Iiller,^''- an 
ordained minister from Missouri. 16th. — It being Lord's 
day, Br. Snelling and myself both preached to a large con- 
gregation for the sparseness of the settlement, and at night 
I rode home with Br. Snelling. How distressing the thought 
that in all my travels in the Willamette Valley I have found 
no Baptist Sabbath school above Oregon City. My spirit is 
deeply afflicted with the thought that the children of Bap- 
tist families and others have so few opportunities for re- 
ligious instruction. One Sabbath each month they may hear 
a sermon preached ; and then there are few books, except the 
Bible, adapted to instruct the youthful mind in morals and 
religion, while the temptations to visit and rove the plains 
in diversion are many and powerful. I long for the faithful 
S. S. teachers, with their neat little library of books, to direct 
the youthful mind in the ways of virtue and wisdom. 

17th. — Rode 30 miles, crossed the two remaining forks of the 
YamHill River, passed through Chehalum Valley, ^''^ visited 
two Baptist families and spent the night on the south fork 
of the Tualatin River with an interesting Baptist family. 

18th.— Visited Rev. Mr. Clark in TuaJity Plains. Near his 
residence he, with the assistance of a few benevolent friends, 
sustains a school called the Oregon Orphans' Asylum.^"* 
This school will probably become in some future day a liter- 
ary institution for the Congregational denomination. Rode 
14 miles, visited two families and arrived at Br. Lenox's. 

20th.— Walked 28 miles to Oregon City.^^s Spent the re- 
mainder of the week in visiting in the city and vicinity and 
in preparing to go down the river. 23d. — Preached twice for 
Br. Johnson. Congregation moderately good. 24th. — Left 



172 This was Rev. Richard Miller, who came to Oregon in 1847. Mattoon, 
Bap. An. of Ore. I:S, 59. 

173 The Chehalem Valley was settled as early as 1834 or 1835 by Ewi(lg 
Young, who had accompanied Kelly to Oregon. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1 :92. 

174 This was the forerunner of Pacific University. 

175 Oregon City at this time, according to Dr. Atkinson, had 120 houses. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 253 

Oregon City for Clatsop on board the launch of the unfor- 
tunate ship Peacock.'''*^ 

28th. — Reached home ; found my dear wife just recovering 
from a painful illness occasioned by an abscess in the right 
breast. It, however, pleased our Heavenly Father to spare 
her life and that of our little son, now eight weeks old. 



Clatsop Plains, March 1st, 1849. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

I wrote you one letter under date of Sept., 1848, and for- 
warded on board the brig Henry bound for San Francisco. 
I have written you three since and forwarded to San Fran- 
cisco on board the Mary Cadell. She left aliout the first 
of Feb. I hope these will reach you by mail ; one of them 
contained my report of 19 weeks up to Fel). 2, 1849. W'ith 
this journal I shall send you a letter under date of Feb. 8, 
1849, on the subject of a literary institution. Accompanying 
the package which I sent you on the Mary Cadell were the 
follov/ing in answer to letters received by boxes of goods 
last Sept. : Two sheets to members of Deep River Baptist 
Church, Connecticut, under date Oct. 12, 1848. One to Sarah 
L. Joslin, East Jeffry. N. H., Oct. 12, 1848. One to Rev. 
Joseph Stockbridge, N. Y., Oct. 14, 1848. One to Mrs. 
Elizabeth N. Jones, AA'eston. Mass., Oct. 17, 1848. Or-e to 
the Baptist church in Amenia, N. Y.. Oct. 18, 1848. One to 
Rev. Reuben Winegar, Rensselaerville. Albany Countv, N. 
Y., Oct. 21, 1848. One to the Elmira and South Port church. 
Chenango County, N. Y., Oct. 18, 1848. One to East Greene 
church, Chenango Co., N. Y., Nov. 12. 1848. One to James 
Cowan, 119 Ludlow Street, N. Y., Jan. 24, 1849. One to Rev. 
Ira M. Allen, N. Y.. Feb., 1849, and a package to Timothy 
Taft under various dates, Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y. I trust 
they will all reach their places of destination. 

I shall leave in a few days for San Francisco, if Provi- 
dence wills, and shall probably spend three or four months 



176 The U. S. S. 'Peacock," of the Wilkes exploring expedition, was lost at 
the mouth of the Columbia in 1841. Bancroft, Hist, of N. W. Coast, II:S32. 



254 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

in California. Br. Johnson advises to this course in view of 
the unsettled state of things at present in Oregon. You will 
hear from me again soon, if life is spared. The goods which 
you forwarded on the bark Undine were lost. You will 
probably draw to the amount on the insurance office and 
forward the same articles again. 

I will here insert a small bill of articles which were over- 
looked in making out the bill forwarded you last month. I 
hope it will reach you before you fill that bill, that you may 
put them up together : 

1 leather travelling trunk, 2 pairs small shoes for child 
2 yrs. old, 1 coffee mill, lace for eight or ten ladies' caps, 2 
pair of ladies' dark kid gloves, rather over medium size, 1 
dress shawl, worsted, 1 Latin dictionary, 1 Virgil with clavis, 
1 pair spectacles, for Mrs. Fisher, set in silver, 4 rolls of 
black quality binding about one inch wide. 

N. B. — Should this bill not reach you before you fill the 
bill last ordered, you will probably forward these articles 
with other articles which you may forward for the mission- 
aries. 

P. S. — I shall report up to the first of April in a few 
weeks and hope to be able soon to let you know the state of 
things in California. Br. Johnson writes me that probably 
nine-tenths of all the men in Oregon will go to the mines in 
California next summer.'''^ I think this a large estimate. 
Gold is found in small quantities in several places in Oregon, 
and the prospects are said to be the most promising on the 
Santi Am River. Whether it will be found sufficiently abun- 
dant to justify working is yet uncertain. ^''^ No doubt our 
government will order a geological and mineralogical sur- 
vey of California and Oregon soon.'^^ Such a work would 

177 The author was right. Probably about two-thirds of the young and mid- 
dle-aged men went. F. G. Young, Financial Hist, of Ore., in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. 
VII:373. 

178 Gold was already found in small quantities in the gravels on the Rogue 
River, and along the Willamette. — G. H. Himes. 

179 This survey was not made, although it was later agitated, especial^y by a 
Mr. Evans. — G. H. Himes. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 256 

greatly aid emigrants in deciding the place of their loca- 
tions. We need an unusual degree of grace to enable us to 
be successful in the great work of the gospel ministry in 
the midst of the unparalleled excitement which reigns 
through the entire community. Sometimes I almost de- 
spond in view of the present and coming scenes. All ar- 
ticles of living are high — food, raiment and labor. Oregon 
is almost empty of goods. Farming is being neglected to 
an alarming extent. All improvements in mills and me- 
chanics' work is about to be suspended and the rage is for 
gold and how men can reach the mines. It will cost prob- 
ably two or three times as much in dollars and cents to 
support a family here this year as last. Yet we hope that in 
a year or two things will become more settled and the facili- 
ties for doing good will be much increased. All reports rep- 
resent the moral condition of California alarmingly deplor- 
able. Gambling, drunkenness and violence reign. 

Yours, 



EZRA FISHER. 



Received July 3, 1849. 



Sullivan's Creek, a fork of the Terwallomy, 

May the 12th, 1849. 
Dear Mrs. Fisher: 

Colonel Hall and Edward Lenox, being about to return to 
Oregon, I take my pen to write you a line. My health is 
very good, through the tender mercies of Almighty God. 
Yet our work is quite laborious at present and we get but 
little gold in comparison to those who dug six or eight weeks 
ago. Mr. Stone and myself are boarding with Mr. Jeflfrie 
at three dollars per day. We expect to move camp in a few 
days to the bars on the large streams. We may go south to 
the Terwallomy, or we may go north toward the American 
Fork. I cannot tell when I shall leave for home. Should 
providence smile on my health, I think of staying till we can 
get on the bars and till I can make enough to help the family 
to some of the comforts of life. I have seen men take out 4, 



256 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

6, 8 and 12 ounces in a day since I have been here, while 
others within ten steps would not pay their board and work 
ha^rd. I think the climate tolerably good, but washing day 
after day with feet and hands in the water, and drinking to 
intoxication and carousing through the night and sleeping 
like pigs in the dirt, will generate disease in any climate. I 
do not know whether it will be necessary for me to send 
you any funds before I return. Should I conclude to stay 
till July or August, and I have a good, safe conv-eyance, I 
will send you $100 or $200. If you need anything to make 
yourself and the children comfortable and can get a credit 
till I come, do not let the family suffer. We hope to find 
better diggings as soon as the rivers fall. We have a toler- 
able variety of provisions in the mines, but it is not like 
home. We have few religious privileges in the mines, and 
nothing would induce me to spend three or four months in 
the midst of profane swearing, drunkenness, gambling and 
Sabbath breaking but the hope of providing for my dear 
family, and that, too, while California and Oregon are in a 
state of confusion. Next year probably these privileges will 
be measurably past. We shall hardly expect to get any let- 
ters from you till I go to San Francisco. I wish you would 
write me to that place, to the care of Dr. C. L. Ross, and 
let me know what articles of clothing and groceries the fam- 
ily will need and I will do as well as I can for them. I 
spend little time in thinking about moving while I am work- 
ing hard every day but the Sabbath. I hope to see you in 
August or the fore part of September at the farthest. Pos- 
sibly in July. I would like to see you all and enjoy the so- 
ciety of my family and neighbors a few days at least; but 
I hardly dare to think of it now. Give my best respects to 
Mr. Robinson and wife. I shall never forget their great 
kindness, and should like to be their future neighbors, if 
God so directs. 

You can have no adequate idea of the vast influx of popu- 
lation from all parts of the world to California. Do not 
have Lucy Jane teach and work at home so as to make both 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 257 

you and her sick. I hope Timothy will do well and take 
good care of the garden, so that I can have a few good vege- 
tables when I get home, and I will make him a little yellow 
present. Ann Eliza and Sarah Josephine must be good 
scholars and help Mother do the work and Father will re- 
member them. Kiss Francis Wayland for me. I suppose 
he is beginning to go alone. May God bless you all and 
hasten the time when we may meet in peace and enjoy the 
comforts of life. 

Benjamin Woods, together with several other of our Ore- 
gon men, was killed by the Indians a few weeks ago on the 
American fork. But we have no fear from the Indians in 
this part of the mines. 

Yours in haste, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Terwallomy River, two miles above the mouth of Sulli- 
van's Creek, July 1st, 1849. 
Dear Mrs. Fisher: 

I wrote you about one week ago by a Mr. Smith of Ore- 
gon, who will soon leave the mines homeward bound. But 
Mr. Bird, being about to leave tomorrow, I deem it a pleas- 
ure to spend a few moments in communicating to my dear 
family. I am usually well, although somewhat poisoned 
with ivy. Stone is well ; also all the Oregon men with us, 
except Mr. Bird. He is now recovering from an attack of 
the flux. I should have left with him, if I had two or three 
hundred dollars more. But the time for digging on the bars 
of the rivers is near at hand. I have incurred the expense 
and fatigue of the journey and to all probability this is the 
last year that the mining business in California will break 
up the farming and mechanical pursuits in Oregon, and, as 
we very much need a few hundred dollars to settle ourselves 
comfortably, educate our children and to aid in promoting 
all the interests of Zion on the Pacific Coast, I think I shall 
stay till perhaps the first or middle of next month, if my 
health will allow me to continue to dig. But should I feel 



258 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

any strong indications of approaching sickness, I should 
embrace the first favorable opportunity of leaving the mines 
and reaching home in safety. I am heartily tired of the 
mines. I sometimes think they may be truly called the gam- 
bler's and drunkard's heaven and the Christian's banishment. 
How long I should be willing to remain in this imprison- 
ment for the benefit of myself and family I know not. One 
day I look towards the place of all my domestic attractions 
and Christian relations and long for a release. I then think 
I will not be a fool and entrust the education and support 
of a rising family to the charity of the Christian public, or 
to the slow and hard earnings of my hands at home, while 
six, eight, ten and sometimes twenty and even more dollars 
can be made here per day clear of expense at a season when 
society is literally broken up in Oregon, and California too. 
As far as my friends advise here, they recommend me to stay 
two or three months at least, and then they say they will go 
with me. I expected to do no great things in mining when 
I gave you the parting hand. I have not been disappointed. 
Yet to all human appearances I have done better than I 
should have done to have remained in Oregon. The weath- 
er for the last week has been very warm, the thermometer 
rising' in the shade during the heat of the day to 106 degrees 
and in the sun to 119 degrees, but yesterday and today it is 
quite comfortable. We lay by about three hours in the heat 
of each day. If you can live comfortably till I return. I 
would rather Lucy Jane would stud}- than teach, yet I 
would have you consult the good of the neighbors' children 
as well as that of our own. I hope Timothy will improve 
some in arithmetic and grammar, if he can. after doing the 
necessary work for the family. Should you need flour or 
anything else. I think you can get it on a short credit and 
I will cheerfully pay it on my return. Keep Ann Eliza and 
Sarah Josephine at their books part of each day if you can. 
Kiss little Francis Wayland Howard for me. I want to see 
you all very much. May God bless us all with life and 
health and prepare us for a happy and prosperous meeting.. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 259 

Tell Widow Bond I have sold her gun tolerably well and 
hope she will be benefitted by it on my return. I can hardly 
expect to be favored with so rich a blessing as a letter from 
you till I reach San Francisco. I have written you five or 
six letters since I reached that place. I almost envy you the 
peas, potatoes, onions, gooseberries, strawberries, etc. I 
hope you enjoy them all well, as well as the milk and butter 
and eggs. Tell Timothy to save the oats and peas in Mr. 
Robinson's barn if he can. Do not forget to remember me 
affectionately to him and all the family. I should have writ- 
ten Mr. Perry before this, but all my time is occupied, and I 
have somewhat expected that he would be in the mines be- 
fore this time. Mining business is generally very dull ; per- 
haps half the miners are doing but little more than paying 
expenses. Give my respects to all the friends. Write me 
at San Francisco and let me know what groceries and cloth- 
ing the family will need the coming winter. 

Your affectionate husband and father, 

EZRA FISHER, 
To Lucy Fisher and all the children. 
Mrs. Lucy Fisher, 

Clatsop Plains, Oregon. 
To be left at Astoria, care of Mrs. Ingles. 



San Francisco, Cal., July 18, 1849. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

In a letter of the 29th of February I think I gave you my 
apology for visiting California and going to the mines. I 
now wish to say that my stay in the mines was a little 
more than eight weeks, in which I am not conscious that I 
have performed any essential service to the cause of Christ, 
farther than that my influence went to suppress the out- 
breaking sins of those with whom I associated. During 
those eight weeks I preached but two Sabbaths, and I sup- 
pose these were the only sermons which have ever been 



260 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

preached in the mines. My present haste forbids my giving 
you at this time anything more than a brief outHne of the 
state of things morally in the mines. A large majority in 
the part of the mines where I worked were from the Span- 
ish-American republics and soldiers and sailors, many of 
whom had either deserted from our country's service or run 
away from merchant vessels. The various countries of 
Europe, the Pacific isles and China, as well as several states 
and territories of our own nation, were represented. Pro- 
fanity, Sabbath breaking, gambling and drunkenness reign 
unrestrained. Every trading shop within my knowledge 
sells intoxicating spirits, and most of them sufifer gambling 
tables. Perhaps there is not a place on the face of the 
earth where gambling is conducted on so large a scale. It 
may be said in truth that thousands of dollars are some- 
times won at one table in a night. Many of the laborers dig 
through the day and at night change their gold into coin 
and gamble it away before they sleep. In short, the mines 
may, with some degree of propriety, be called the gamblers' 
and drunkards' heaven. And to crown the scene, the Chris- 
tians' Sabbath is the great day of trade and bull fighting and 
drunkenness and licentiousness. Professors of religion sell 
more ardent spirits and provisions on that than any other 
day in the week. I went to the mines principally to raise 
something to give my family the bare comforts of life, hop- 
ing, however, that I might in some measure unite bodily 
labor with duties of the ministerial office. God has merci- 
fully blessed me with about $1000 worth of gold, and to all 
probability, if I had stayed three or four months longer and 
had been blessed with a continuance of my health, I might 
have raised from $2000 to $4000 more. But an abiding con- 
viction of the duty I owe to the cause of Christ in Oregon 
has induced me to direct my attention to the appropriate 
field of my labors as soon as I could place my family above 
immediate want. I have been in this place ten days await- 
ing a vessel for Oregon. I shall sail tomorrow or next day. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 261 

I supplied Br. Wheeler's^^° place in this town last Sab. while 
he is making a visit (and I hope an important one) to Pueb- 
lo, about 40 or 50 miles south of this place. One important 
object he has in view is to secure, if possible, a site for a 
literary institution. The location must be favorable if se- 
cured. 

Wrote you on the 29th of Feb. last, at which time I made 
my report up to that time and, as I left before the middle 
of March, I shall not think of being chargeable to your 
Board till the time I arrive again at my own home. It af- 
forded me great pleasure to meet Br. Wheeler and wife as 
missionaries at San Francisco, when I reaqhed here last 
April. He needs at least three or four able, efficient fel- 
low laborers. ^^^ I hope your Board have them already un- 
der appointment. For my part, I think my first business 
after reaching home and spending a week or two in Clatsop 
will be to visit the Willamette churches and endeavor to do 
something" with the friends of education by way of agreeing 
upon a site and securing it for an institution of learning for 
the denomination in Oregon. 

I have just received a letter from my dear wife inform- 
ing me of the arrival of several boxes and a barrel of goods 
at Oregon City, directed to me ; also one box directed to 
Elder Johnson. I shall attend to that business as soon as 
possible and acknowledge the receipt of the goods donated 
by letters to the donors. I answered most or all of the let- 
ters of which you speak in your last during last winter and 
you have probably received the answers before this. Many of 
our Oregon men are returning from the mines and I fondly 
hope the great gold excitement will gradually abate in Ore- 
gon from this time. Yet it is hard to predict what will be 
the end of this unparalleled state of things. I understand 
that Br. Snelling is in the mines. An excellent brother in 
Oregon has given me the assurance that he will join me in 



180 Rev. O. C. Wheeler arrived in California in February, 1849. Bancroft, 
Hist, of Calif. \U:727. See also note 148. 

181 Two other missionaries for California were appointed by the Baptist Home 
Mission Society in 1850. — Bap. Home Missions in N. Am. 1832-1882, p. 339. 



262 CORRESPOxXDENCE OF THE 

purchasing two claims side by side and donate in common 
with me the necessary amount of land for the site of an 
institution and do all in his power to carry the work forward, 
if I will go into the enterprise and move to the spot. He 
has just carried home with him more than $4000 in gold 
dust and coin. The question with me is whether I may 
enter into this work without diminishing my usefulness as a 
faithful minister. We may act too precipitously on this 
subject. Should we take action on this subject before the 
immigration from the States reaches Oregon and lands take 
a great rise, as they have already done in California, I trust 
your Board will at least acquiesce in the movement and in 
that event have a suitable man ready for the mouth of the 
Columbia. 

Yours, 
EZRA FISHER, 
Received Sept. 13. 



Oregon City, Nov. 14, 1849. 
Rev. Benj M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. Missionary Society. 
Dear Brother : 

I shall employ my leisure moments during a few evenings 
to transcribe my journal of a tour from my former residence, 
up the Columbia River and through the Willamette Valley 
in August, September and October last. Aug. 26th. — 
Preached to an interesting congregation at Clatsop Plains af- 
ter an absence of five months in California. Found it truly 
pleasant to meet the few members of the church and address 
them on the subject of the importance of fortifying the 
youthful mind against the temptations peculiar to the Coast 
and solemnly warned the youth of their great danger. 29th. — 
Left my family for a tour through the Willamette Valley. 

Sept. 4th. — This day reached Oregon City, after a journey 
of almost an entire week of laboriously pulling the oar by 
day and sleeping on the ground by night , which is no un- 
common occurrence to those travelling this route. Found 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 263 

the Baptist cause in this city somewhat improved and the 
territorital legislature, in which are two of our Baptist 
brethren, 1^2 jj^ session, and, providentially falling in with two 
other brethren from the country, we held an interesting con- 
ference on the subject of the necessity of taking action for 
the establishment of a literary institution in Oregon and, 
preparatory to this work, unanimously agreed to call a meet- 
ing of friends of education in the denomination to be held 
in this place on the 21st and 22d days of the present month. 
This city, situated immediately below the great falls of the 
Willamette, at the head of which two saw-mills, with two 
saws each, and two flouring mills, ^^-^ are kept constantly 
employed, begins to assume a business like appearance. The 
town contains ten or twelve drygoods stores, a variety of 
mechanic shops, five places of public worship — Methodist, 
Baptist, Congregationalist, Secederi^-* ^j-,(^[ Roman Catholic — 
and a population of about six hundred souls. At present 
this is the most important place in the Territory and it will 
always form the great connecting link between the Willam- 
ette Valley and the Pacific Ocean. Here I spent four days 
in visiting families and the members of the legislature. 

8th. — Travelled 16 miles to the small church on the 
Molalla over a rolling country interspersed with forests of 
fir and open lands generally set thick with ferns and scat- 
tering grass. Soil generally good, but settlements few. 
9th. — Preached to an interesting congregation on the Molalla 
prairie. This church, numbering about eight members, has 
had preaching but a few Sabbaths since its constitution. 
Manifest a laudable desire for a stated ministry and are 
willing to contribute liberally, in proportion to their num- 
bers, for its support. 



182 These two Baptist members of the legislature were probably R. C. Kinney 
and W. T. Matlock, members of the House. Rev. H. Johnson was chaplain of the 
House. Bancroft. Hist, of Ore. 11:72; 1:633; 11:143." Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 
In the first reference in Bancroft the initials of Matlock seem to be wrongly given 
as W. S. The manuscript records of the Oregon City church show W. T. Matlock 
to have been a member there. 

183 The two flour mills were owned, respectively, by Dr. John McLoughlin 
and the Oregon Milling Company. The sawmills were apparently also owned by 
them and connected with the flour mills. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore, 11:2-5. 

184 The Seceders were the New School Presbyterians. 



264 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

10th. — Travelled up the Willamette Valley about 25 miles, 
crossing four of the branches of Pudding River, all incon- 
siderable streams. The face of the country is generally 
about as level as the gently rolling prairies of the Mississippi 
Valley, except for a few points of hill in passing out of the 
Molalla prairie. Soil variable ; generally good, yet occasion- 
ally inclining to be wet and clayey. Settlements sparse in 
the morning, but in the afternoon more compact. Spent the 
night with a brother formerly from Iowa. He is settled on 
the southwest border of Howell's Prairie, 12 miles N. E. from 
Salem and, far removed from church privileges, thirsting for 
the golden waters. It is to be lamented that Christ is too 
far thrust aside. Oh ! "What shall it profit a man if he 
gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" 

11th. — Rode ten miles to Salem, a small town on the east 
bank of the Willamette containing some twenty families. 
Here I visited two Baptist families who seem desirous of 
seeing the cause promoted in their place and have secured 
two town lots for church purposes, should they be needed 
for that object. ^^^ This is the point where the Methodists 
have located their literary institution. The school at this 
time numbers about 70 children of both sexes. This place 
has a commanding central position in the Willamette Val- 
ley, and will probably become a place of some importance in 
future years. At present the health of the place is question- 
able. We hope the day is near when an efficient Baptist 
church will be gathered in this place. In the evening rode 
ten miles up the valley of Mill Creek through a picturesque 
and fertile part of the country ; spent the night with a Bap- 
tist family who have been halting on the subject of mission 
measures, but are now desirous of having a church consti- 
tuted in their settlement, which may be done in a few 
months, if we can find any preacher who can visit them 



185 A Baptist church was organized in Salem in November, 1850, but seems 
not to have survived. It was revived in 1859. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:17, 141. 
See also the letter of Aug. 23, 1853. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 265 

even monthly. ^^^ There are some eight or ten Baptist mem- 
bers in the settlement. 

12th. — Traveled 23 miles this day over some of the most 
delightful part of Oregon ; my way lay along the borders of 
the timber skirting the Willamette, crossing successively the 
Santiam and Callipooia rivers. In passing the Santiam the 
foot of the mountains recedes from the river and the prairies 
on the east open out to ten or twelve miles in width and 
forty or fifty miles in length, except as the streams are 
sometimes skirted with rich groves of fir and oak. The 
valleys of these streams sometimes penetrate far into the 
bosom of the mountains, affording some of the richest and 
best watered lands in the world. Farther east the mountains 
rise, pile above pile, till at last may be seen some six or 
seven lofty conical peaks, raising their summits far into the 
region of perpetual snow. At one view the eye can survey 
the luxuriant plains with their meandering streams, the ever- 
varied mountain side clad with dense forests of evergreen 
firs and the still more lofty snow-capped mountains, around 
whose sides the clouds sport in wild confusion. Perhaps no 
part of the world can exhibit, at one glance of the eye, so 
admirable a combination of the beautiful, the grand and the 
sublime. 

13th. — Spent the day in examining the country in refer- 
ence to the location of an institution of learning. I never 
travel through this portion of the valley without being forc- 
ibly impressed with the thought of the almost incomparable 
beauty and grandeur which must strike the eye and cannot 
fail to inspire the heart of every beholder, when civilization 
shall have taxed all the resources of these plains and moun- 
tains. How important then that the character of the crowds 
that must soon people this valley should be formed by the 
precepts of our Holy Law-giver ! 



186 This was probably the nucleus of the Shiloh (Turner) Raptist Church, or- 
ganized August 31, 1850. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:9. 



266 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

14th. — Visited a small church on the south fork of the 
Santiam.is^ Find the few brethren ready to do something 
liberal for the preached Word and in anxious expectation to 
welcome Br. Cheadle, our colporter missionary, who has al- 
ready arrived safe in the valley. ^^^ 

15th. — Travelled 25 miles to Mill Creek to meet a Sabbath 
appointment which I left as I passed up the valley. 

16th. — Preached to an interesting congregation and enjoy- 
ed a good degree of consolation while they listened atten- 
tively to the Word. 

17th. — Having returned as far as Molalla, I preached at 3 
P. M. to a small congregation of people, and on the 19th 
reached Oregon City. 

Sept. the 21st. — The friends of education convened, and 
after the preaching of a short sermon the convention was or- 
ganized by calling Br. Hezekiah Johnson to the chair and 
electing myself clerk. But a few persons were present; but 
all seemed impressed with the conviction that the time had 
arrived when God in His providence called on us as a de- 
nomination to take prompt measures to establish a perma- 
nent school under the direction and fostering care of the 
Baptist churches in Oregon. 

22d. — Convention met ; I again preached, after which the 
convention originated the Oregon Baptist Education Society 
and adjourned the meeting to the church in YamHill County 
on the 27th. 

23d. — Spent the Sabbath with the church in the city and 
twice addressed the people. Congregation good. Spent the 
remainder of the week in visiting the church in Tualatin 
Plains and preached twice on the Lord's day. This church 
have in their bounds an ordained minister of excellent char- 
acter, but unable to devote much of his time to the minis- 



187 This was probably the Santiam Baptist Church, at Sodaville, Linn County. 
It was organized in 1848 and became extinct about 1857. Mattoon, Bap. An. of 
Ore. 1:8. 

188 Rev. Richmond Cheadle, 1801-1875, was born in Ohio and came to Oregon 
from Iowa in 1849. He was at this time colportor for the American Baptist Pub- 
lication Society. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1 :70. 



• REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 267 

^i-y 189 'pi^g church wants and needs a man of more ability 
who can devote his time to the great work of preaching the 
gospel. A faithful minister might, the first year, expect 
from this church his family provisions, except groceries, and 
perhaps more. Your Board would do well to appoint a mis- 
sionary for that church and vicinity. This church is situated 
in the midst of an interesting farming country and within 
from two to eight hours' ride of all the small towns rising 
up on the Willamette from the Falls (Oregon City) to its 
lower mouth, including Vancouver on the Columbia River. 
This church is the oldest and, in truth, at present the most 
promising church in the territory, having a number of in- 
teresting young men. 

25th. — Rode to YamHill Church to prepare for the meet- 
ing; visited several families. 26th. — Visited three families, 
among whom I met with a man apparently near the eternal 
world, yet he seemed unwilling to have his mind led to the 
subject of his spiritual welfare. I gave him a few words 
of advice and left him to his own reflections. Oh, how 
obvious it is that man naturally has no love for God ! . . . 

27th. — Met the friends of education, one member from 
each church except the Molalla church being present. After 
a long and friendly deliberation, it was agreed to locate the 
institution on the east bank of the Willamette River, about 
eight miles above the mouth of the Callipooia River, and 
about seventy above Oregon City. The Education Society 
appointed a Board of Trustees for the institution and the 
Board appoTiited me to take charge of the school and re- 
quested me to remove as soon as practicable to the place 
and open a school. Measures were also taken to raise $2000 
for the purpose of erecting suitable buildings and to meet 
the other necessary expenses. 28th. — Returned to Oregon 
City through an interesting, picturesque country of prairie 
and timber forty miles ; visited one family on the way and 
reached the house of Br. Johnson late at night almost over- 



lap This was probably Rev. William Porter. See note 163. 



268 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

come with fatigue of body and anxiety of mind. We have 
assumed vast responsibilities, yet our strength is weakness 
and I fear but a very few realize the amount of responsi- 
bilities we have assumed ; and then we must take one man 
in part from the appropriate duties of the ministry till we 
can obtain relief from the States. Yet we cannot do less, if 
we do anything. The public will have no confidence in our 
meeting and passing resolutions while we do not act. Schools 
are greatly needed ; our hope of successful operation in Ore- 
gon is in the youth. Other denominations are in advance of 
us, and the Romans are already at work. Well, by the grace 
of God, without which we are nothing, we must try. Pres- 
ent emergencies alone reconcile me to the task. I shall 
probably be called to preach almost every Sabbath and have 
thrown under my immediate instruction a portion of the 
most promising youth in the Territory. I confidently hope 
relief will be speedily sent from the States in the person of 
a well ciualified professional teacher to fill the place. 

29th. — Attended the monthly meeting of the church at 
Oregon City, preached on the occasion, and on the 30th 
preached again. The subject, The Sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper. Congregation attentive. In the evening addressed 
Br. Johnson's Sabbath school. 

Oct. 15th. — Having succeeded in procuring a passage 
down the river, I went on board a whale boat, the best 
method of conveyance we have as yet on our waters, and 
commenced my journey homeward. 19th. — After four days 
of hard rowing and three nights' lodging on the ground, I 
reached home and found my family in usual health and en- 
joying the smiles of a gracious providence. The scenery 
along the Columbia from the mouth oi the Willamettt dov^n- 
ward is highly romantic. For the first sixty miles the bot- 
tom lands spread out from one to eight or ten miles in 
width, interspersed with prairies covered with the most lux- 
uriant grasses and weeds, but subject to occasional inunda- 
tions in June and July. The timber of these bottom lands 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 269 

is willow, balm of Gilead, alder, fir, oak and some maple and 
ash. Much of this land is sufficiently elevated to admit of 
settlement. Immediately back of these bottoms and not un- 
frequently approaching the river's edge arise the low moun- 
tains, sometimes rather abruptly, but seldom precipitously, 
from 1000 to 5000 feet, groaning under a dense forest of 
evergreen, fir, spruce and cedar, interspersed with maple and 
alder. Lower down the river the mountains occasionally 
arise from the water's edge with great abruptness and some- 
times raise their basaltic walls like perpendicular battlements 
500 or 600 feet, from whose heights the timber lands rise 
with a gradual ascent and, during the rainy season, drain 
their waters in imposing cascades over these buttresses of 
nature into the bosom of the noble river whose rolling 
floods perpetually wash their base. As you approach nearer 
the ocean the scenery becomes more imposing. The river 
widens into a broad sheet from six to fifteen miles in width ; 
the high hills on either side, with, however, many exceptions, 
rise abruptly from the water's edge and, clothed with their 
evergreen forests, present an imposing contrast to the wide 
spread expanse of waters pent up at their bases. Nor does 
the grandeur of the scene decline till this vast accumulation 
of water loses itself in the Pacific, where may be seen, to 
the astonishment of the beholder, the warring of mighty 
waters as they meet and dash their angry spray from the 
summits of mighty billows, bidding defiance to all the in- 
ventions of man. 

No doubt that the great commercial emporium of Oregon 
must rise into being in the vicinity of this imposing scenery; 
and conditions are rapidly working to bring about the com- 
mencement of this work. Milling companies are being 
formed with a large capital for the erection of both water 
and steam sawmills, and other mills are being erected ; town- 
sites are selected and the rage for speculation in town prop- 
erty is fast ripening into a mania. May God grant that the 
children of light may be wise and prepare to follow this 



270 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

extraordinary spirit of enterprise with the spirit of the gospel. 
Yours in gospel bonds, 

E. FISHER. 



Oregon City, Ore., Nov. 31st, 1849. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br.: 

After a long delay in consequence of our unsettled affairs 
as Baptists in Oregon, and the multiplicity of cares that 
come upon me, both of a religious and domestic character, 
by means of my absence in California, I now take my pen 
in hand to write you as near as possible the present state of 
things with us and to answer a few of your inquiries. And, 
first, I will acknowledge the receipt of a list of letters which 
I have received from you : One under date of July 20th, 
1848 ; one July 29, 1848 ; also thte box of goods enclosing 
with them the bill of lading. Goods were received in good 
order. With this I have an inventory and bill of lading of 
goods shipped on board the Serampore. One under date of 
Aug. 8th, 1848, and with it, I think, a commission No. 1281, 
April 1, 1848. Also a commission for Elder V. Snelling. 
Br. Snelling is yet in the gold mines and will not probably 
return until next spring, consequently he will not be able to 
fill that appointment. One under date of October 2, 1848 ; 
one from Jas. M. Whitehead, Nov. 1st, 1848; one from your- 
self under date Nov. 1, 1848, accompanying an invoice of 
goods shipped on board the bark Whiton, Roland Gelston, 
master, with the bill of lading. Goods all arrived safe and in 
good order, except that the shoes and donation goods had 
become somewhat moldy — not materially damaged. Also 
one under date of Nov. 23, 1848. I have just written and 
forwarded a letter to Rev. S. S. Cutting, editor of the N. Y. 
Recorder; also one to the ladies of the First Bap. Church 
in N. Y., acknowledging receipt of their valuable donation. 

On the twenty-third of August I arrived in Clatsop Plains 
from California, after a passage of twenty-six days. Found 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 271 

my family in good health. I immediately entered upon the 
duties of a missionary and, after preaching one Sabbath, left 
home on a tour in the Willamette Valley. On reaching this 
city I found two of our brethren in the legislature and two 
more from the country present. Upon deliberating upon the 
importance of immediate action on the subject of locating 
and putting into operation an institution of learning under 
the direction of the denomination, it was agreed to call a 
meeting to be held at this place on the 21st and 22d days of 
September to take action on the subject. The meeting was 
accordingly held and an educational society was formed ; but 
in consequence of the small number in attendance the meet- 
ing was adjourned to the 4th of October to the YamHill 
Church. At "that meeting every church in the Territory but 
one was represented, and the convention voted to locate the 
institution on the Willamette River about 70 miles up the 
river from this place and appointed a brother to repair im- 
mediately to the place and secure the site. It was then un- 
derstood that the land was vacant. The convention also ap- 
pointed Rev. Richmond Cheadle to labor two months for the 
purpose of raising two thousand dollars for erecting a school 
house and covering other necessary expenses. The conven- 
tion also invited me to move to the place and take charge of 
the school and voted to pay me $400 and to request the 
Home Missionary Society to continue my appointment with 
the usual salary of $200, regarding that amount as barely 
sufficient to sustain my family for the year. Solely from the 
consideration of the fact that the exigency of the case seem- 
ed to demand immediate action, and we have no man in 
Oregon but myself to whom our brethren are willing to look 
to fill this place till a competent teacher can be found and 
sent us from the States, I thought it best to comply wiih 
the call. The convention also instructed me to correspond 
with you on the subject of engaging a well qualified teacher 
to take charge of the school. We hope to be able to pay a 
teacher $800 salary. Thus you perceive the reason why I ad- 
dress yovi from this place. I have just arrived here with my 



272 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

family. We have just learned that the site on which we 
have fixed for the location of our institution is not vacant 
and we have concluded to spend the winter in this place. [ 
shall open a school here within a few days and preach in 
this place and the adjoining towns on Sabbaths. I think it 
rather probable the result will be that we shall finally locate 
our school in the immediate vicinity of this city. Public 
sentiment of our wiser brethren seems to be setting strongly 
this way. By the opening of the spring the question will be 
decided whether we locate permanently at this place or in 
the center of the Willamette Valley. We hope to be able to 
buy the lands and erect the first temporary buildings and 
perhaps support our first teacher without calling on the lib- 
erality of our eastern brethren directly for funds. But we 
must look to you for a competent teacher qualified to teach 
the Latin and Greek languages, natural science and mathe- 
matics, and it will be very desirable if he could teach music. 
Money is plentifuP^^ in this country and education is held in 
popular favor. Our plan will be to find some Baptist friends 
who will buy and hold a claim of 640 acres and donate a oor 
tion of it for a site now while land is cheap. Will you find 
us a teacher and send him to our assistance as soon as a 
properly qualified one can be obtained? My removal from 
the mouth of the Columbia renders it important that your 
Board find a young man of talent and appoint him to labor 
at Astoria and Clatsop Plains. A man is also much needed 
in the church in Tualatin Plains. The church in that place 
will supply a minister's table from the first and the place is 
important in location. I shall report at the expiration of 
this quarter for all the time I have served as missionary 
since I returned from California, but I shall forward you a 
portion of my journal the next mail. 

I am much interested in the private letter. Almost all ar- 
ticles of drygoods sell at from 100 to 300 or 400 per cent ad- 



190 The increase in the supply of money in Oregon was, of course, the result 
of the California mines. Some gold was coined in Oregon City, and Mexican and 
Peruvian silver dollars had come in large quantities. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 
11:52-55. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 273 

vance on the market prices in New York. Farming uten- 
sils, castings, especially stoves, tinware, nails, crockery, pat- 
ent pails, washtubs, brass kettles and household furniture of 
all kinds sell very high, and all kinds of fabrics made of 
leather (shoes, boots, saddles, bridles, etc.), ready-made 
clothing, calicos and all kind of cotton goods, flannels, silks 
and fashionable woolen goods for ladies' clothing, woolen 
hose and half hose, etc. I hope your friend still continues of 
the same mind. I think I can find a faithful, experienced 
Baptist brother who will like to embark in the business. He 
is now in California for his stock of goods. His name is 
Levi A. Rice, formerly from Ohio', whose moral character 
stands high. Should your friend wish farther information 
and still wish to do something through the medium of 
trade for the moral and religious condition of Oregon, I hope 
God will open the door for him. We have also another 
brother of good standing and also an attorney-at-law who is 
about entering into trade in this place, who no doubt might 
be induced to enter into this kind of business. Freight from 
San Francisco to this place costs as much as freight from N. 
Y. to this place. Your friend will readily see the advantage 
of shipping directly to the Columbia. Our merchants all 
trade through California. Consequently it is their policy to 
discourage all capitalists in eastern cities from embarking 
directly in the Oregon trade. Oregon has suffered long 
from this selfish policy. 

Yours with Christian esteem, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Feb. 9, 1850. 



Oregon City, Jan. 8th, 1850. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

. . . You have probably learned before this that I am 
at this place engaged in teaching and preaching. A convic- 
tion of duty rather than a desire to change has brought me 
to this place and this employment. At this period in my life 
I have not the most distant desire to engage in teaching and 



274 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

thus abate my ministerial labors. But the time has evidently 
come when we, as a denomination, must act in refernce to 
securing a site and putting into operation a school or we lose 
an important kind of influence with the rising generation, and 
even with the present acting community. 

The public are asking for schools and will have them. If 
then we select our site and leave the schools to spring up 
hereafter, the public will repose no confidence in our enter- 
prise and other denominations will educate not only the chil- 
dren generally, but even those of our Baptist families. And 
then we need, very much need, some benevolent object 
around which we may rally the denomination, and I know 
of no one benevolent object in which they will so readily be 
brought to harmonize and which will serve as a precursor 
to all the benevolent enterprises of the gospel as an institu- 
tion of learning under the control and instruction of Baptist 
men and dependent on the denomination for support. If we 
undertook the work, I felt fully assured that I must give a 
portion of my time at least to the work till such time as 
we could secure the labors of a professional teacher from the 
States. Again, should the Lord of all hearts convert our 
children and they look to the work of the ministry, they 
must either enter upon that work uneducated, or we must 
provide the means of education for them in Oregon. We 
cannot expect to send our sons back across the Rocky Moun- 
tains or by way of the ocean to the States to be educated, 
and they are fast growing up around us. With these and 
many other considerations rushing upon my mind, I was 
led to the conviction that it was my duty for the tim.e being 
to enter upon the work of teacher as well as preacher till 
we can be supplied from other sources. Perhaps Br. John- 
son and myself will be enabled to perform nearly as much 
ministerial labor and sustain the school, if it is continued in 
this place, as we should if I had continued at Clatsop, al- 
though I left that place at last with great reluctance. We 
shall probably finally fix upon a site for our institution im- 
mediately adjoining this city plat, about half a mile from the 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 275 

river on a point which will have a commanding view of the 
river below and a portion of the city as soon as the timber 
is removed. We have provided for forty acres of land.^^^ I 
suppose Br. Johnson has given you the particulars. I there- 
fore will leave this subject for the present. 

I have rather a promising school. ^^- How long it may re- 
main so is with the All Wise to disclose. We shall much 
need classical books, such as are in use in our best schools in 
the States, among which we must have a few Latin and 
Greek grammars, lexicons and such preparatory books as 
are required in fitting for college in the old States. Also 
Roman and Greek antiquities and classical dictionaries. We 
hope to make arrangements as soon as we can to order such 
books as we shall need. But should you find any liberal 
friend of education in Oregon, I hope you will do somethmg 
for us by way of securing a few books of the above descrip- 
tion. 

We intend to make vigorous efiforts the coming summer to 
erect a good wooden school house, perhaps with two apart- 
ments and a boarding house, notwithstanding the enormous 
price of lumber and all building materials and labor. Lum- 
ber is now worth $100 per thousand feet; carpenter's labor 
is worth from $8 to $12 per day. Flour is worth $25 per 
barrel, potatoes $4 per bushel and all other provisions pro- 
portionately high. You will readily see that all our expenses 
must be very high, and there is no immediate prospect of 
their becoming lower. All kinds of labor are richly reward- 
ed except that of preachers and teachers. 



191 This was on the Ezra Fisher Donation Land Claim, which adjoins on the 
east the town site of Oregon City. The author, Rev. H. Johnson and J. Jeffers 
bought the right to this tract of over 600 acres, and the author obtained a patent 
to it from the government. See his letters of March 29, 1850, and Nov. 12, 1850. 
The purchasers agreed to give the college a tract, and fifty-one acres were later 
deeded to the trustees of Oregon City University, under which name the institu- 
tion was chartered. Some of the timber on the claim was very large. One red fir 
measured 300 feet in height. 

The view mentioned included the Willamett River and three snow-capped peaks 
— St. Helens, Adams and Hood. 

192 A niece of Hezekiah Johnson had taught a private school in the church 
building for several months, sometime previous to this. Besides the author's school 
there were at this time only three other schools in the town — two under Roman 
Catholic auspices, and a private school for girls under Mrs. N. M. Thornton. See 
letter of Feb. 8th of this year. 



276 CORRESPONDENXE OF THE 

Our Board of Trustees have requested me to ask that yovr 
Board of the H. M. Soc. continue to appoint me with a salary 
of $200, in addition to what I shall receive for teaching, as 
they expect I shall preach nearly every Sabbath and spend 
some time in visiting the churches and attending public 
meetings. Your Board should not neglect a single month to 
secure a suitable man for the mouth of the Columbia River 
and to have him on the way immediately. The place is too 
important to be neglected. 

Accept, dear brother, my grateful acknowledgement of the 
clothes you sent me. They fit well and are the best I have 
to appear in public in. The Lord grant you your reward. 
The clothing we have received from the States has been of 
essential service to my family, and I know not how I should 
have been able to have sustained my family without them. 
Let our friends known that partially worn woolen clothes 
aid us in publishing the gospel in this new and neglected 
territory. 

I wrote you last about the 8th and 9th of Nov. and then 
thought I should have forwarded these sheets in a few weeks, 
but the labors of my school and other duties have prevented 
till the present. You will soon hear from me again on the 
subject of your friend's commercial enterprise and by way 
of my report, etc. 

Yours affectionately. 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received, April 6, 1850. 



Oregon City, Jan. 26, 1850. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill. 
Dear Brother : 

Your letter of June, blank day, 1849, and June 28th, were 
received on the 18th inst., acknowledging the receipt of sun- 
dry letters from me, one of which contained an order for 
goods. I trust you have filled the bill and forwarded the 
goods, with the replacing of those lost on the Undine. I 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 277 

think rather unfavorably of the Undine wreck, falsely so 
called, and I have not unbounded confidence in Capt. Gelston. 
Hte presented a friend of mine with an order on me for 
freight on the goods you shipped by him for me to Cali- 
fornia, after giving you a receipt on the bill of lading. The 
order was not paid and I presume he will not present me 
with his bill as I retain his receipt in the bill of lading. I 
wish to give you a statement of facts relative to our mis- 
sionary affairs in Oregon. When we came to Oregon, Ore- 
gon City was the only place worthy the name of a town in 
the whole Territory. Br. Johnson seemed providentially 
thrown into this city. I was providentially thrown into Tu- 
alatin Plains. I explored the settled part of the country 
generally, and in view of the fact of Br. Snelling being placed 
at YamHill, a place somewhat central in the Willamette Val- 
ley, and in view of the prospect that a place of importance 
would soon rise at the mouth of the Columbia, Br. Johnson 
complied with my suggestion that it was important to fill 
that opening. I removed to Astoria, but finding little could 
be done there till commerce increased, yet being conscious of 
the importance of the point prospectively, I removed eight 
miles to Clatsop Plains, where we have a few good members, 
thinking to labor there till circumstances should favor an at- 
tempt to build up an interest at Astoria. Things were new, 
everything was to be done, both in the way of providing for 
my family, for common schools and for the cause of Christ. 
The means of subsistence, except clothing and mechanics' 
labor, were cheap. We knew the policy of your Board in 
relation to the amount they give to aid the churches in sus- 
taining each missionary and, in the main, we approved of it. 
We could not expect any very rapid changes in the settle- 
ment of our territory, so far removed from all other settle- 
ments. Yet we were confident that our position was of great 
importance. Our brethren were generally men who had re- 
ceived their religious training in the West and knew but 
little of system in the support of the ministry and indeed 
had not yet generally learned the importance of ^ ministerial 



278 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

support. Were we to ask the Board for $600 salary, that 
would appear like an enormous expenditure in comparison to 
the relative results and importance of the field. We, there- 
fore, concluded that to abandon the field would be disastrous 
and our only alternative, in view of all circumstances, would 
be to practice economy, even to parsimony, and, while the 
country was new, to meet the necessities of our families, 
which remained unprovided for by the Board and our breth- 
ren and friends, by our own industry and that of our families 
till we could have time to correct false views in our brethren 
here and the age of the country would insure us entire sup- 
port. I know not how it has been with Br. Johnson, but I 
have never attempted to conceal from your Board the fact 
that sheer necessity impelled me to labor, working with my 
hands to supply my immediate wants. Had you forwarded 
to me the $200 in cash, that sum would not have bought $65 
worth of clothing and groceries in N. Y. My only alterna- 
tive seemed to be to order goods for my family supplies. 
This process has taken from one to two or three years to 
get our returns. With this state of things I have been in- 
clined to wait with patience. Could we have received our 
pay from N. Y. at your prices at the end of each year, we 
might have been able to give ourselves mostly to the gospel 
ministry up to the time of the commencement of the gold 
excitement. Since that time changes have gone on with un- 
paralleled rapidity, till the time has now come when, instead 
of $200, it would require $1800 to $2000 to give my family a 
comfortable support at Oregon prices. Gold is found so 
abundant that our men will go and get it in preference to 
farming their rich lands, till potatoes are worth $5 per bushel 
and flour is from $25 to $30 per barrel, and all kinds of living 
extravagantly high. Gold is found on the Umpqua and 
Rogue rivers in Oregon, so that our men will probably mine 
near home next summer. ^^^ We therefore expect a great in- 



193 Mining was just beginning in these valleys. The summer of 1850 saw two 
hundred miners at work in the Umpqua Valley, but the real boom came some time 
later. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:184-186. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 279 

flux of population into our Territory the coming year.^^'^ 
Farming will revive and sawmills will be multiplied through 
the country bordering on our navigable waters. We confi- 
dently hope for a more settled state of things and expect our 
brethren will soon become liberal in the support of the gos- 
pel. I could now settle myself in Tuallity Plains and have 
my family table supplied, excepting groceries. Then $200 
or $300 would meet all my expenses, by ordering my cloth- 
ing and groceries from N. Y. But we must have a school, 
and our brethren think my duty calls me to take charge of it 
till you can send us suitable teachers. I may realize about 
$1000 per year for teaching, if we continue the school in this 
place, and be able to preach every Sabbath. Next week the 
friends of education meet at this place and no doubt they 
will agree in opinion with Br. Johnson and myself on the 
place of location. We have forty acres of land cleared from 
all incumbrances immediately adjoining the city plat for the 
site, and can build within half a mile from the Willamette 
River on a commanding eminence. In the event of my teach- 
ing, Br. Johnson will travel through the Willamette V^alley 
the coming season and I shall spend my Sabbaths with this 
church and at Milwaukie,^^^ a business place springing up six 
miles below this place on the river. My first quarter of the 
school will close next week. School has been large and I 
have been compelled to call in the aid of my eldest daughter 
part of the time. We shall continue the school in the Bap- 
tist meeting house^^^ till next fall or the spring following 
and, in the meantime, we shall make an efifort to build a 
good school house, with two apartments, on the contemplated 



194 See note 154. 

195 Milwaukie, only recently laid out, had a population of 500 in the fall of 
1850. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:251, quoted from Oregon Spectator, Nov. 28, 1850. 

196 Among the pupils who attended the school while it was still held in the 
meeting-house were Theodore Matlock, Almond B. Holcomb, William G. Welch, 
Isaac Holman, John Welch, F. Dillard Holman, E- M. White, W. L. White, Lucy 
Jane G. Fisher, E. T. T. Fisher, Ann Eliza Fisher, Franklin Johnson, W. C. John- 
son, Anne Abernethy, Abner P. Gaines, Noble W. Matlock, Jane Matlock, Ellen 
Matlock, William Bullack, William Cason, Adoniram Cason, James Cason, Maria 
Moffett, William ^Nloflfett, Julia A. Johnson, Charlotte Johnson, Amy Johnson, Sarah 
Josephine Fisher, Lucy More, Rebecca Parrish, Pauline Tompkins, Helen Tompkins, 
Josephine Hunsaker, Horton Hunsaker, Jacob Hunsaker, and Medorum Crawford. — 
Recollections of W. C. Johnson and W. G. Welch. 



280 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

site, although lumber is from $100 to $150 per thousand feet 
and carpenters' and joiners' labor is from $8 to $12 per day. 
Cannot some friends furnish us with a bell weighing- from 
100 to 400 pounds? You may learn by the bearer of this that 
a large company is forming, or rather is formed, to build up 
a town immediately adjoining Cape Disappointment with 
steam mill, steam boat,^^'' etc. This is adjoining the point 
which the government will first fortify on the north side of 
the Columbia at the entrance from the ocean. The enterprise 
will probably succeed, not however to the prejudice of As- 
toria. I am pained in spirit every moment I think of that 
point (at the mouth of the Columbia) being left destitute of 
a Baptist minister. Your Board cannot be too forcibly re- 
minded of the importance of early occupying that part of 
the field. The N. Y. of Oregon must spring up in that vi- 
cinity very soon. The first steamer which comes into the 
Columbia to run between this city and the mouth of the Co- 
lumbia will stop the shipping at Astoria. We have a 
small church at Clatsop Plains, not quite extinct, which 
would receive a minister and do what they can for his sup- 
port. If we had a man at the mouth of the river now, a 
block 200 feet square and located in the most favorable part 
of this new town, called Lancaster, would be donated for 
church purposes. Elder Snelling is in California and I 
learn that he has made arrangements to move his family to 
that territory.^^^ He has not labored under the commission 
you sent me. We feel that we must have a missionary or 
two more for the Willamette Valley. One is needed at 
Salem on the east side of the river and one on the opposite 
side of the river with the Rickreal Church or the YamHill 
Church. 

Yours affectionately, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received May 8, 1850. 



197 This was later known as Pacific City, then Unity, and then Ilwaco. — G. H. 
Himes. 

198 Snelling died in California in 1855. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:44. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 281 

Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Feb. 8th, 1850. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br. : 

I take my pen in hand to give you the Constitution of the 
Oregon Bapt. Educational Soc, together with a few of the 
resolutions passed at the late meeting of its Board held in 
this city Feb. 2nd. As we have as yet no means of publishing 
the proceedings of our meetings, we must transcribe and send 
all our proceedings in letter form : — 

Constitution of the Oregon Baptist Education Society as 
adopted by convention, Sept. 22, 1849. 

Art. 1st. — This Society shall be called the Oregon Bapt. 
Education Society. 

Art. 2nd. The objects of this society shall be to promote 
the cause of education generally; to locate one literary in- 
stitution, or more, for the benefit of the Baptist denomi- 
nation in Oregon Territory ; to appoint a board of trus- 
tees for each of the same ; to hold such board or boards 
responsible for the faithful execution of the trust commit- 
ted to them ; to aid in the education of indigent pious 
youth of promising gifts in our churches and to raise funds 
to carry into effect the above named objects. 

Art. 3rd. — The officers of the Society shall be a President, 
Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and five Directors who 
shall constitute a board for the transaction of business, all 
of whom shall be members of regular Baptist churches, and 
three of whom shall form a quorum whose respective duties 
shiall be the same as those usually exercised by officers of 
the same name in similar societies, who shall be chosen an- 
nually, but shall hold their offices until their successors are 
chosen. 

Art. 4th. — Any person may become a member of this So- 
ciety by subscribing to this Constitution. 



282 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Art. 5th. — This Society shall hold its annual meeting's at 
the time and place of the annual meetings of the Willam- 
ette Baptist Association. 

Art. 6th. — It shall be the duty of the President to call 
special meetings of this Society at the request of any two 
members of the Board. 

Art. 7th. — The officers of this Society shall be empow- 
ered to regulate their own meetings and to make their own 
by-laws, not inconsistent with this Constitution. 

Art. 8th. — This Constitution may be altered or amended 
at any annual meeting of the Society by a vote of two- 
thirds the members present. 

In view of the improbability of securing the property 
where the locating committee had fixed for the site of an 
institution and in view of the manifest providences of God, 
the Education Society convened Feb. 3d. Elder H. Johnson 
called to the chair. Moderator prayed. On motion it was 
voted to reconsider so much of the proceedings of the So- 
ciety as it related to the location of an institution of learning 
in the center of the Willamette Valley. 

After hearing proposals from the brethren who had pur- 
chased the Barlow claim in reference to this object, it was 
unanimously voted to locate the Baptist institution on the 
forty acres of the above named claim immediately adjoining 
the city plat of Oregon city.'^^ The site will command an 
excellent view of the river below the town and the lower 
part of the city. Providence has seemed to close up almost 



199 The tract is now known on official maps as the Ezra Fisher Donation Land 
Claim, and adjoins the Oregon City Claim on the east. No college buildings were 
ever erected there. The building, as recorded later in these letters, was put up in 
Oregon City. 

This Baptist institution was only one of a number of Christian denominational 
institutions which were projected in these days when the state had as yet failed to 
provide adequately for public instruction. Some of these institutions died early; 
others, as at Monmouth and Corvallis. were merged into state institutions. A few 
survive as Christian academies and colleges. 

Among those which perished were the Clackamas "female seminary" at Oregon 
City, a college at Eugene, and academies at Sheridan and Santiam. Among the 
surviving schools are Willamette University, Pacific University, Albany College, and 
McMinnville College. To this last was turned over the remnant of the property of 
that Oregon City college, whose early history is given in these letters. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 283 

every other favorable point and open up this point unan- 
ticipated by all and unsought, and by this means throw us 
as a denomination in juxtaposition with the Romans, and 
in the only position where they may be successfully met. 
Here they are making great efforts to secure the work of 
educating the children and youths of our city and surround- 
ing country. They have erected a nunnery about 70 feet 
by 30, two and one half stories, with a school in operation 
under a lady superior and five assistant sisters of charity 
and have about sixteen or twenty female children from fam- 
ilies in our city. One of the priests teaches all the male 
scholars he can draw under his instruction, which, by the 
way, have been very few (not more than 8 or 10) since I 
opened my school. My school the last quarter numbered 
more than fifty. 

We have also a female school in this place taught by a 
Presbyterian lady.^oo 

On motion it was unanimously voted to request Elder 
Ezra Fisher to continue the charge of the school in Ore- 
gon City and that the Board of the A. B. H. M. Soc. 
be requested to continue him as a missionary in this 
place and vicinity at a salary of two hundred dollars a 
year. The Society voted to make an effort to raise four 
thousand dollars the ensuing year to erect a suitable 
school house and to meet the incidental expenses of the 
Society. The Society voted to appoint Elder Richmond 
Cheadle its agent for two months, with a salary of one hun- 
dred dollars per month, to carry the above resolution into 
effect. 

Voted to request the Board of the A. B. H. M. Soc. 
to use their influence to procure us a bell, weighing 
from 200 to 500 pounds, and classical books such as are 
in use in literary schools in New England and New York. 

Since the last named meeting the proprietors of the 
claim have agreed to give to the institution about ten or 



200 This was Mrs. N. M. Thornton. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. II :35. 



284 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

twelve acres more of land lying immediately adjoining 
the site and we hope for a smiall donation from the ad- 
joining claim.201 j must renew my private request that 
you find us a well qualified, literary young man and send 
him out to our relief as soon as practicable. I cannot 
think of being long confined five days in seven within 
the walls of a schoolhouse while so much is to be done 
in the ministry and th,ere are so few laborers. But at 
present our brethren have so willed it and I comply from 
a conviction of duty rather than from a desire for the 
office. I wish to leave this matter with God. I trust I 
shall be able to make out my report up to this time next 
week. 

I am as ever your unworthy brother and fellow-laborer 
in Christ's vineyard, EZRA FISHER, 



Missionary in Oregon. 



Received May 27, 1850. 



Oregon City, Feb. 19, 1850. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill. 
Dear Brother : 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the ap- 
pointment of the Home Mission Society from the 22nd of 
August, 1849, up to the first of Oct. for the term of ten 
weeks, it being the first report which I have made for 
the year commencing the first day of April, 1849. I 
have labored ten weeks in the quarter, preached fourteen 
sermons, delivered six lectures on the subject of Sunday 
schools and religious education, visited religiously fifty 
families and one common school, baptized one, traveled 
to and from appointments 535 miles. The remaining 
items of the report I have been unable to do anything for, 
except that the Sunday school in Clatsop Plains is con- 
tinued with three Baptist teachers and about twenty 
scholars; about 135 volumes in the library. For a more 



201 This donation from the adjoining claim was never made. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 285 

detailed account of my labors this quarter I refer you 
to my journal, which I forwarded you in December last, 
if I mistake not. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Missionary in Oregon. 



Oregon City, Feb. 20, 1850. 
Herein I send you my report of labor for the third 
quarter of the year commencing April 1st, the quarter 
commencing October first, 1849. Labored thirteen weeks, 
preached fourteen times, delivered thirteen Sunday 
school lectures and twenty lectures to my day school, 
attended three church meetings and visited eighteen fam- 
ilies religiously. But have done nothing on the other 
various subjects required in the form of reports in the 
commission. The reason I assign is the circumstance of 
my being called to remove to Oregon City and the new 
and somewhat peculiar relation I have consented to sus- 
tain for the time being as a teacher in our newly organ- 
ized school for Oregon. 

The time has come when all these benevolent enter- 
prises should have a home in the hearts of all the Bap- 
tists in Oregon and should be responded to by benevolent 
action ; and I think something will soon be done on the 
subjects of home missions, foreign missions and the 
Bible cause, as well as for our institution of learning. 
My school has been flourishing the past quarter and num- 
bered between sixty and seventy different scholars. I 
had about ten young men and lads who declaimed each 
two weeks and about 20, male and female, who wrote 
and read their compositions each alternate two weeks. 
Two boys in algebra, one young lady in natural philos- 
ophy, about a dozen in geography and about the same 
number in English grammar, about twenty in arithme- 
tic and two in history. The present term is an unfav- 



286 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

orable season of the year. I have taught but one week, 
have 24 and the prospects fair for about 40 scholars. 
At a meeting of the board of the institution, held in this 
place on the 15th instant, it was resolved to name the in- 
stitution the Oregon City College. 

I will now proceed to give you a report as near as I can 
calculate for the quarter ending April 1st, 1850. My field 
of labor comprises Oregon City, Milwaukie and vicinity. 
I have labored thirteen weeks in the quarter, preached 
sixteen sermons, attended three church meetings. Ad- 
dressed Sabbath schools twelve times, my day school 
fifteen times on religious subjects. Delivered one tem- 
perance lecture. Visited religiously thirty-five families 
and individuals. I have assisted in the celebration of 
the Lord's Supper twice ; attended one meeting of the 
Oregon Baptists' Education Society. Have the charge 
of the Sabbath school in Oregon City , with 20 schol- 
ars and four teachers and 200 volumes in the library. 
The remaining requisitions in the instructions I have 
omitted, as nothing is yet done for them. Our congre- 
gations in this place and Milwaukie are increasing and 
it seems obvious to all our friends at least that the 
hand of God is in our attempts to establish our insti- 
tion in this place. Marked attention is generally 
paid to the preached word and we fondly hope that 
God will visit us with His spirit, notwithstanding all 
the rage for gold and speculation with which we are 
surrounded. All of which is respectfully submitted. 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary in Oregon. 
Received May 27, 1850. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., March 29, 1850. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill. 
Dear Brother : 

Yours of July 14, 1849. addressed to me in Califor- 
nia, containing a copy of the one you forwarded in 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 287 

June, yours under date October 15th, 1849, accompany- 
ing my commission bearing date Apr. 1, 1849, and 
yours of Dec. 10, 1849, have all been received within 
a few days, the last of which I hasten to answer as 
briefly and as directly as the complicated circumstan- 
ces will admit. You may rest assured that it affords 
us great pleasure in Oregon to have so strong assur- 
ances thjat our brethren on the other side of the moun- 
tains cherish so correct and liberal views in relation to 
the future importance of Oregon and we are still more 
cheered to discover the almost impatient anxiety you 
manifest in our prompt action on the subject of locat- 
ing and bringing into existence a school for the bene- 
fit of the Baptists in Oregon. 

I have only to say that when I wrote you in Feb. 
and July the denomination as such in Oregon had not 
been consulted on the subject in any of its peculiar re- 
lations and my object in writing you from San Fran- 
cisco was rather to apprise you of the course marked 
out in my own mind for my immediate actions than 
to ask our eastern brethren to aid us immediately. 
But God in His providence has seemed to mark out 
for us a course in an unexpected manner and in a re- 
lation which we had little anticipated and now we are 
compelled to yield to the manifest providential indica- 
tions or sacrifice the most important local position in 
the Territory and with it the little public confidence we 
are beginning to secure. This is the only point in Or- 
egon where Romanism and Protestantism can be 
brought to bear directly upon each other. The nuns 
have here a school and we understand the Jesuits contem- 
plate establishing a college in the immediate vicinity. 
We have good reason to suppose that other denomina- 
tions would have soon fixed upon this place if we had 
not secured our site first. I have already informed you 
that we ■ have secured a land claim immediately ad- 
joining the claim on which Oregon City stands at an ex- 



288 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

pense of $5000. Br. Johnson assumed one half of the debt 
and I paid $1250, which consumed all my available means, 
and we found a friend of mine who paid $1250. This was 
the only method we could hit upon by which we could secure 
anything like a suitable amount of land for college purposes 
near this place without paying from $8000 to $15000. We 
have appropriated about fifty acres of the claim, in the most 
eligible situation and within about half a mile of the most 
populous part of the town, to college purposes and the Trus- 
tees accepted the same. Since I last wrote you we have se- 
cured a town lot, 66 feet by 100, in a central part of the city 
as a donation.-'^^ This lot is now valued at $300. We wish 
to put on this lot a building, 66 by 30, two stories, the pres- 
ent season, if possible, to be occupied by the school till such 
time as we can sustain a school on the college premises. 
The building and lot will then sell for more than the first 
cost or, what is rather probable, may be appropriated to a 
preparatory department. By this plan we shall be able to 
keep a full school from this time forward, with suitable 
teachers. Should the price of lumber fall, as is probable it 
will, we shall labor hard to raise the requisite means and 
build this summer and fall. Yet we have few men in Oregon 
to whom we may look to give us the requisite means. Br. 
Johnson, one other brother and myself have subscribed $650 
toward that object. Our school now occupies the Baptist 
meeting house and must still occupy it till we can build. 
We also need a boarding house erected so that we can be 
prepared to board as cheap as board can be had in the 
country. This must be done or we shall fail of benefitting 
children of Baptist families in the country. Unless funds 
can be raised in the States to the amount of five or six 
thousand dollars, this part of the work must be delayed. 
Now we think that the school itself will afford a good teach- 
er from six hundred to a thousand dollars salary. We think 
we can manage to furnish him a garden and other perquisites 



202 This was lot 8, block 97, of the Oregon City townsite, and was southwest of 
the present Barclay School building. — Clackamas County Deed Records. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 289 

to the amount of from one to two hundred dollars. We 
think by these means, if the friends in the States could raise 
$200, so that he could provide his family clothing at N. 
York, we can sustain a good teacher. We would suggest 
that he leave his measure for all his clothes with you, as it 
costs 30 dollars in California gold to get a coat made at a 
tailor's shop in Oregon and all other sewing is propor- 
tionately high. $200 in New York is worth $1000 here in 
the line of clothing, etc. 

We must have a teacher well qualified to be a popular 
teacher in a New England Academy and one who wishes to 
to make teaching his business for life. It would be de- 
sirable that he have a wife qualified to teach in the primary 
department, or to teach a ladies' school. It will be of little 
use to send us a stupid, half-educated man, with little com- 
mon sense and ignorant of human nature. Should he be a 
good singer, and preacher too, it will be all the better. We 
can find him work. We want and must have, if possible, al- 
most everything necessary to afford facilities for students to 
prosecute their studies without serious inconvenience. We 
need a system of common school books so that we can furn- 
ish our scholars with the best approved books at moderate 
prices, when they enter the school. Our school will soon 
have scholars commencing a preparatory course and we 
must therefore have text books. We then want common 
school books, from the spelling book to the rhetorical reader. 
Perhaps Saunder's series is as good as you can furnish us. 
We are now using these as reading books, but there are no 
more to be obtained in the country. We are using Thomp- 
son's Arithmetic ; perhaps that is as good as you can send 
us_203 -\Yg use Brown's and Wells' English grammar. We 
have a few in natural philosophy; we use Olmsted's. We 



203 James B. Thomson had a number of works on arithmetic published by- 
Clark and Maynard, New York. 

Denison Olmsted, of Yale, had a number of works on natural philosophy by the 
same publishers; and by R. B. Collins and E. D. Trueman of Cincinnati. — American 
Catalogue for 1876, and O. A. Roorbach, Bibliotheca Americana. W. H. Wells' 
Grammar was published in Boston, and Goold Brown's Grammar was published in 
New York. Ibid. 



290 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

have some in algebra and shall soon need a few Latin and 
Greek grammars, readers, and lexicons. Now it seems al- 
most indispensable to our success that we have the most 
approved works always at hand. Can you not find some 
friends who will send out by our teacher on commission 
a small book store of school books and religious and lite- 
rary works and afford them here for forty or fifty per cent 
profits? They will meet with| a ready sale and we can 
find some friend here who will sell them for a small per 
cent for the benefit of the school and Oregon generally, 
without taxing the teacher with this matter farther than 
receiving the funds and forwarding them and conducting the 
correspondence. More than a thousand dollars' worth of 
school books were brought to this place about two months 
since^O'i and they are almost entirely sold, so that the coun- 
try will be out of school books in a few weeks. In addi- 
tion to this we want a small, well selected library, comprising 
histories, voyages, travels, literary and scientific works, espe- 
cially works on the natural sciences, mental and moral phil- 
osophy, political economy, lives, theological standard works, 
etc. ; also a set of globes, a small portable telescope and a 
case of instruments to facilitate the study of natural phil- 
osophy, surveying, trigonometry, etc. We have already asked 
you for a bell. VVe repeat that request ; if you can find 
some benevolent friends who can send us one of from 200 
to 600 pounds weight. The Romans regulate the time of 
our city by their bells. Not a Protestant bell in the place. 
We need nails, hinges, door la'tches and glass sufficient 
for building a house of the size before named and furnish- 
ing two school rooms thirty feet square. Sash also can 
be bought and shipped much cheaper than they can be 
bought here. We think you could render us essential 
service, if your Board would take this matter into advise- 
ment and, when you find the man, commission him to 
travel a few months through some of the most important 
cities and larg-e towns in the free states and solicit funds 



204 These were brought out by G. H. Atkinson. — G. H. Himes. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 291 

for the above named object. We want no old, useless books 
shipped. Send us standard works of the most approved 
authors, if you would aid us in giving a sound political, 
moral and religious character to Oregon. 23000 miles is too 
far to ship trash for a literary institution and, I trust, 
theological school for the Baptists in Oregon. 

We intend to raise $5000 or more for this work in Ore- 
gon the present season. We have an agent appointed for 
two months and he will work in the best part of the season. 
I this day introduced the subject to a friend of mine. He 
assured me that he would give us $500 when we got ready 
to circulate our subscription and would also deed us a lot 
in Lancaster, a town just springing into existence on 
Baker's bay on the north side of the mouth of the Colum- 
bia, which he said was worth $500 more. Surely, thought 
I, the Lord intends to bless our feeble efforts. We feel 
that we are placed by providence now where we cannot 
leave the work and we see no other way but that I must 
stand in this moral Thermopylae until you can send us aid. 
We have reason to expect my health must gradually de- 
cline under the labor of teaching, and preaching every Sab- 
bath. Yet such is the great destitution in our whole terri- 
tory that we feel that it is sinful for me to think of leav- 
ing the appropriate duties of the ministry. There are times 
in the h,istory of men's lives in which all the energies of 
the man are called for. This at present is our condition in 
Oregon. This is the time when the demand for preparatory 
work is great, very great. There is scarcely a rising town 
in Oregon where church property and educational prop- 
erty would not be donated to the denomination, if we had 
a few more men in the ministry, or, what would be still 
better, a few more wise, active laymen to secure such valu- 
able property. 

We hope the brother you appointed for Oregon last Nov. is 
on his way with one or two more fellow laborers. We would 
name Fort Vancouver as a commanding point which should 
be occupied very soon. Soon immgiration will be pouring in 



292 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

upon us from over the mountains and by water. Your Board 
must be apprised of this. We have the best evidence that 
gold is abundant in the south part of Oregon, and probably 
our Oregon men will dig near home this season. 

We see that Br. Geo. C. Chandler is about leaving the pres- 
idency of Franklin College.^os He is favorably known by us. 
AA^ould it not be right to draw him away from Indiana to the 
charge of our school? Means must not be wanting to in- 
sure us a teacher such as will secure public respect and con- 
fidence. My school numbers about 45 this quarter and will 
be larger from this time forward. Last quarter it was larger. 

We subscribe ourselves, Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER, W. T. MATLOCK, 

Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Clerk of the Board. 

Done by order of the Trustees of Oregon City College. 
Received July 9, 1850. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., July 1, 1850. 
To Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bapt. Home IMission Soc. : 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society for the first quarter end- 
ing June 30, 1850. My field comprises Oregon City and Mil- 
waukie, six miles below Oregon City on the east bank of the 
Willamette, Clackamas County, and Linn City,^^^ Washing- 
ton County (formerly Tualatin) immediately across the Wil- 
lamette from Oregon City. I statedly supply the station at 
Oregon City half the time and superintend the Sabbath 
school and teach the Bible class. Supply the station at Mil- 
waukie once each four weeks and supply the station at Linn 
City once each Sabbath three-fourths of the time. I have la- 
bored thirteen weeks the last quarter, preached twenty-five 



205 Rev. George C. Chandler (1807-1881) was licensed by the church in Spring- 
field, Vermont, while the author was pastor there. He went to Indiana in 1838 and 
was president of Franklin College from 1843 to 1850. He came to Oregon in 1851. 
Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1 :73-82. 

206 Linn Citv was laid ofif by Robert Moore in 1843. Hist, of Portland, ed. by 
H. W. Scott, p. '78. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 293 

(25) sermons, delivered one annual address before the Oregon 
Tract Society ,207 auxiliary to the A. T. Soc, twelve lectures 
to the Sabbath school and Bible class, attended three prayer 
meetings and one three-days' meeting in connection with the 
communion season of the church in this place on the first 
Sab. in May. Visited religiously twenty-three families and 
individuals , visited no common schools, addressed my own 
on moral and religious subjects twenty-seven times. Bap- 
tized none, obtained no signatures to the temperance pledge, 
organized no church, aided in no ordination, traveled to and 
from my appointments one hundred and fifty miles, received 
none by letter or experience, no conversions known, none 
preparing for the ministry, except one anti-missionary brother 
who is studying and reciting to me. No monthly concert of 
prayer (I trust this thing will not long be so). 

The people where I labor have done nothing for any of the 
missionary societies. Connected with the places where I 
preach are three Sabbath schools in which the Baptists partic- 
ipate, but only one under Baptist direction. The one at Or- 
egon City has four teachers, 20 scholars, and 200 volumes in 
the library. I have a Bible class of six scholars. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Oregon City and vicinity. 



Our association has just closed an interesting session.^os All 
was harmony; all the delegates were deeply impressed with a 
sense of the importance of ministerial support and passed 
some spirited resolutions on the subject. One small church 
sent up a pledge that they would pay one hundred dollars for 
one fourth of the time for a year, if they could be supplied 
with monthly preaching. Other churches will do as well and 
we now have the hope that before the rainy season sets in al- 
most every church of nominally missionary Baptists in the 

207 This was organized in the autumn of 1848 and did some colporteurage work. 
— G. H. Himes. 

208 The Association met with the I^a Creole Church, June 28-30. — Minutes of 
Willamette Baptist Assn. of Ore. 



294 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Territory will have entered into a systematic arrangement of 
their own to sustain preaching part of the time. Yet we have 
serious drawbacks upon our spiritual prospects by means of 
the gold excitement. Some of our leading members and 
many of the men, especially our young men, are off in the 
mines much of the time, and the mind dwells on the thought 
of golden treasures at the expense of all the great moral and 
religious subjects which are indispensable to a happy and re- 
ligious influence. Our citizens are now mining successfully 
in Oregon on the Umpqua and Rogue rivers and gold is 
found above the Cascade Mountains on both sides of the Co- 
lumbia River^o^ and it is the opinion of those who have 
visited that region as prospectors that it will also become a 
mining region this fall. 

Our school is quite as flourishing as could be expected in 
the midst of all these exciting causes. Several of the young 
men have gone to the gold regions and one or more will leave 
soon. Yet my average number of scholars, large and small, 
is about 56 the present quarter. I have had 75 different 
scholars since the term commenced, which was on the 27th 
of May. The school calls for all my energies during the 
week. My oldest daughter is almost constantly employed in 
teaching with me. In addition to teaching, for the last eight 
weeks I have spent about one hour each day soliciting sub- 
scriptions for our school building. We shall build the first 
building in the city, on account of obtaining scholars, but 
think we shall be able in two or three years (perhaps sooner) 
to take the department for young men to the college prem- 
ises. We have resolved as a Board to build a house 22 feet 
by 42, two stories, so as to accomodate the school with two 
good school rooms in one story and appropriate the other 
story to a lecture room, 22 by 32, and a room of 10 feet by 
22 for a library, philosophical apparatus or reading room, as 
the case may demand. We have now subscribed $3332 in 
cash and what is called $6500 in Pacific City property. The 



209 This gold was found on bars just above the Cascades of the Columbia. — G. 
H. Himes. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 295 

town property is not available at present and probably is not 
now worth more than twenty cents on the dollar. This sub- 
scription I have obtained, except a few hundred dollars. We 
have an agent, Eld. Richmond Cheadle, in the field for two 
months, so as not to materially interfere with his ministerial 
duties. He has just entered upon the work. We hope he will 
raise for us $2000 or $3000. We think we shall be able to 
raise 500 or 1000 dollars more in this vicinity for this object. 
The hand of the Lord seems to be with us in this work. Yet 
it is extremely expensive building. Lumber is worth at this 
time $55 per thousand feet, delivered, and we have no hope 
of its being lower, and mechanics' work is worth from $10 to 
$12 per day. We are waiting with great anxiety for our teach- 
er and hope his wife may be well qualified to teach a ]:ia' 
school. The building for our county female seminary is going 
up and teachers will be needed in that and we ought to fur- 
furnish our proportion of teachers.^io The building is to be 60 
by 30, two stories. You will no doubt do what you can for 
us by way of securing a library suited to our present wants 
and, if possible, make arrangements so that we can have a 
small book store kept here so that at all times we can supply 
our own scholars, and all others who may want them, with 
the best approved school books and other popular and stand- 
ard works. Our whole territory is materially suffering for 
want of school books now and the scarcity will be daily in- 
creasing. Our teachers, or one of them, might keep the books 
and sell them without entirely deranging the school. I say 
one of them, for, with present appearances, we cannot expect 
to do with less than two teachers from this time forward. 
Beside this, we must have teachers, both male and female, 
through the Territory. Immigration will soon pour in upon 
us from all parts of the world by thousands and we must be 
prepared to meet this extraordinary state of things or ignor- 



210 The Clackamas County Female Seminary was the successor of a school 
opened by Mrs. N. M. Thornton, February 1, 1847. — Oregon Spectator. 

It was later enlarged, chiefly through the efforts of Dr. G. H. Atkinson, and 
two teachers sent out through Governor Slade of Vermont taught there for a time. 
It became a public school some years later. The site is occupied by the present 
Barclay School. — G. H. Himes. 



296 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ance and vice and luxury will soon work the ruin of this fair 
portion of our great nation. We are looking for some half 
dozen female teachers sent out by the Board of the National 
Popular Educational Society .^^^ We hope that the Society 
will not be made a tool to sustain Congregationalism through 
all our new states and territories. From the nature of the case 
it must be a mighty engine and, unless well guarded, will be 
employed to serve the interests of those sects who manage 
its affairs. A fair proportion of the teachers sent out to the 
West by that Society should be Baptists, or the deficiency 
should be met by direct denominational action on our part, or 
the molding of the minds of the next generation in the mighty 
West is given over into Pedo-'baptist hands, or, what is far 
worse, into the hands of the Romans. 

We have not yet contracted the printing of the minutes of 
our Association, but voted to print 300 copies, together with 
an abstract of the minutes of 1848, all of which will about fill 
eight octavo pages. Our printer here will charge us $75 for 
150 copies. I have prepared them for the press and I do not 
know but we shall send to you for printing. We presume the 
work can be done for $12 at most in New Y. The Associa- 
tion voted unanimously to request the Board of the American 
Baptist Home Mission Society to appoint Elder Vincent 
Snelling as their missionary to labor one year within the 
bounds of the Willamette Baptist Association at a salary of 
$200..2i2 Done by order of the Association. Ezra Fisher, 
Clerk. Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, Oregon, July 10, 1850. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

The steamer Carolina is in with the mail at Portland. I do not 
know how soon she will go out, but probably in two or three 



211 This refers doubtless to the five young women who came out to teach in 
1851. They were escorted by Thurston, the Oregon delegate to Congress, who died 
on the way out. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:136. They were sent by the National 
Board of Education. 

212 Rev. Vincent Snelling was appointed Aug. 1, 1850, by the Home Mission 
Society, for the term of one year. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1 :44. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 297 

days.2^^ I mail this in haste, hoping to be able to write again 
before the mail is made up at this place. We had a S. school 
celebration in this place on the Fourth. I was called upon to 
deliver the address. The whole business of the day passed 
off in order and on the whole a new import to the S. S. cause 
was given. All our schools have increased since that day — 
ours has almost doubled. My school large. Gold on the 
Umpqua and Rogue rivers not found sufficiently plentiful to 
justify digging while the mines are more rich elsewhere. 
Nothing certain as to the quantity of gold up the Columbia. 
I shall send an order for clothing and groceries this mail if 
possible. 

Yours truly, 
EZRA FISHER. 
Received Sept. 6, 1850. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., June 17, 1850. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

Herein I send you a bill for goods which I wish you to fill 
and forward to me by the first good opportunity you have to 
ship direct to Oregon. I hope you will not ship to California, 
as it costs as much to ship from California to Oregon as it 
does from N. Y. to Oregon. 1 book case and table for writing 
made so that the book case can stand on the table, cherry, 1 
barrel of best brown sugar, 1 ten pound box of green tea, 30 
or 35 yds. of carpeting, not exceeding $1.25 per yd., 1 box 
sperm candles, 1 pair heavy calfskin boots, No. lis, 4 pairs of 
men's good calfskin shoes, No. 10, 4 do. half No. 8's and half 
No. 9's ; 2 pairs thick shoes, 8's and 9's ; 4 pairs ladies' gaiters, 
Nos. 4 and 41/2 each; 1 pair do.. No. 3; 4 pairs of ladies' 
shoes, calf, 4 and 4I/2 ; 2 do. Morocco, 4 and 4I/2 ; 2 pairs 
ladies' shoes, calf, No. 3; 2 pairs do. girls' Nos. 12 and 13; 



213 In June, 1850, the steamer Carolina (Captain R. L. Whiting) made her first 
run to Portland from San Francisco with mails and passengers. In August she was 
withdrawn and put on the run between San Francisco and Panama. Bancroft, Hist, 
of Ore. 11:188. 



298 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

1 pair girls' gaiters, No. 12; 4 pairs child's shoes, calf, Nos. 8 
and 9 ; 1 dress coat ; 1 good summer vest and 2 pairs cloth 
pantaloons for me, made to your measure, rather large ; 4 
pairs of suspenders for pantaloons; 12 or 15 pairs colored 
lamb's-wool half hose for men ; 6 pairs ladies' cotton hose, 
colored; 2 do. alpaca; 3 do. lamb's-wool; 4 do. lamb's-wool, 
small, for girl about twelve years old ; 4 do. lamb's-wool hose 
for girls eight or nine years of age ; four pairs lamb'swool 
half hose for children, four or five years old. Let all 
the hose and half hose be colored. 1 bolt of good gingham ; 1 
bolt of good worsted, or alpaca, fashionable for ladies' 
dresses, not very light colored ; 20 yds. of lawn, light colored ; 
1 cheap settee, if it will not cost too much for freight; 10 
yds. of Irish linen, fine, for bosoms and collars; 1 bolt cot- 
ton sheeting, bleached, fine ; 1 do. unbleached, fine ; 2 ladies' 
summer bonnets, trimmed ; 2 do. misses' trimmed, age 8 and 
12 years; 1 web of linen edging, half-inch wide; 1 do. 11/4- 
inch wide, a good article ; 3 pairs brown linen gloves for 
gentlemen, rather large ; 1 pair black kid gloves, gentle- 
men's, rather large ; 4 do. ladies' gloves ; 2 pairs ladies' 
mitts for summer; 4 do. misses' mitts for girls 8 and 12 
years old ; 6 large bottomed chairs and one large and one 
small rocking chair, strong, boxed, ready to set up here ; 2 
pairs of silver set spectacles, suitable for my age; 1 hat for 
me, 23^^ inches in circumference on the outside around the 
band ; 1 copy of the Comprehensive Commentary, if you 
have not forwarded it to me before this ; 1 pair of brass can- 
dlesticks ; 1 do. iron; 1 pair of snuiTers and snulTer tray; 6 
German silver dessert spoons, large ; 2 boxes of vegetable 
shaving soap, put up in small white earthen boxes ; 6 fine 
ivory combs; 1 ladies' parasol; 6 white linen pocket hand- 
kerchiefs ; 4 silk pocket handkerchiefs ; 4 black silk cravats 
for gentlemen, or 4 yards of good black silk for cravats ; 8 
yds. of figured white lace for ladies' caps ; 1 bolt of good, 
fine, firm, red flannel; 20 yds. of drab colored cambric for 
facings of dresses ; 1 boy's cap for winter, not fur, for boy 
four years old; 12 yds. brown holland, fine article; 15 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 299 

yds. brown toweling; half pound good black sewing silk; 1 
silk and 2 cotton umbrellas ; 1 dozen spools of white sew- 
ing thread; l^^ dozen spools of colored thread; half pound 
of black linen sewing thread; 15 yds. good black cassimere 
for men's pantaloons; half ream good letter paper; 1 lb. 
alum ; 1 good overcoat for me, rather large for yourself ; 1 
dress shawl, worsted, a good article; 4 pounds of Thomp- 
sonian composition,^!^ and a quart of No. Six. We wish 
you to study economy in the purchase of these articles, yet 
we are quite sure that cheap sale articles, for instance shoes 
and boots, ready-made clothes, etc., are very unprofitable; 
they fall to pieces so soon. Sale shoes, for instance, in this 
dry climate often last but a few weeks and sometimes but 
a few days. The taste of people is fast changing and people 
are becoming extravagant in dress and we must be able to 
appear in all circles. You need no further explanations. I 
received no bill of the goods you sent us last and know noth- 
ing how your account stands with me. We want you to fill 
this bill and let us know how we stand. We feel that we 
cannot get along with anything short of what I have order- 
ed, in our present condition, and, if this more than covers 
my salary, I must try and raise the funds here some way to 
meet it. Our necessary expenses and sacrifices to keep the 
institution in operation must keep us exhausted in means un- 
less God by His gracious providence opens doors beyond our 
present knowledge. But we have commenced the work in 
faith and we trust we shall be sustained. We cannot go 
back. The work to us appears more and more important 
every month. We expect the labor of elevating its character 
will be great and the work will advance slowly and with great 
expense, but waiting will be disastrous to our reputation as 
a denomination of Christians in Oregon. We must have help 
in Oregon for this work ! 

Not a word from you in this mail, either to Br. Johnson 



214 This was a famous remedy of that time. 

The form.ula seems to have been bayberry 2 lbs., ginger 1 lb., cayenne pepper 2 
oz., cloves 2 oz. Horton Howard, An Improved System of Botanic Medicine, Co- 
lumbus, 1832, p. 370. 



300 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

or myself. Give us at least a male and female teacher be- 
fore next spring, and a good, young minister for Astoria and 
vicinity ; a man adapted to rise with the people and mold the 
mind of the people, both morally and religiously. This seems 
to me indispensable, if you will have the Baptist interest 
take deep root at the great commercial point in Oregon.^is 
Yours with great respect, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Sept. 6, 1850. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Sept. 20, 1850. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill. 
Dear Brother : 

After a long delay I take my pen to write you a kind 
of a general epistle, a part of which must be virtually a re- 
capitulation of some of my former letters. By Divine bless- 
ing my family and Brother Johnson's are all in tolerable 
health. I commenced the fall quarter of our school last 
Monday. We have now fifty scholars; probably we shall 
have an increase next week. My daughter still assists and 
we are yet compelled to have all the school in one room. 
The work on our school building progresses as fast as we 
could expect, in view of the present state of things in our 
country. We have the frame now erected, forty-two feet by 
twenty-two ; two stories of ten and eleven feet, and a base- 
ment of wood eight feet in the clear. We shall be able in a 
few days to pay for the timber and work as far as we have 
gone, which will be about $2000. Our financial afifairs will 
then stand somewhat as follows: $3000 on subscriptions in 
cash and building materials, town property as subscribed 
$6700, which we estimate worth about $2000 or $2500.21^ It 
would seem by a glance at our subscription list that there 



215 The reason why the commercial metropolis of Oregon rose at Portland in- 
stead of Astoria is probably because of the long haul from Astoria to the more 
tliickly settled parts of Oregon. It was cheaper to bring ocean ships to the head of 
navigation, Portland, than to make the longer haul overland to Astoria. 

216 The school building completed at so much sacrifice was not used as such 
for more than a few years after the period covered by these letters. It was finally 
torn down in the seventies. The proceeds of such property of the school as could be 
sold were given to McMinnville College. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1 :37. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 301 

are no serious embarrassments to our moving forward and 
completing so much of the house as will be imperiously 
called for the coming winter and painting the outside. But 
money is daily becoming more scarce with us and we see 
no reason to suppose it will become more plenty. Those who 
went to the mines last year and found gold so plentiful have 
spent their surplus funds and little improvements in agri- 
culture or buildings have been made. Lumber has been in 
little demand in California, the markets there having been 
filled with eastern lumber. Collections must, therefore, go 
on slowly, yet labor and lumber and all kinds of building 
materials are higher here than they are even in California. 
We, however, hope to be able to enclose the house and fin- 
ish two school rooms before the first of January. The super- 
intending of the work must necessarily make some drafts 
upon both Br. Johnson's and my time. He has the superin- 
tending of the building and I have secured about three- 
fourths of the subscription. But a failure in this work would 
prove ruinous to the Baptist cause in the public estimation, 
so far as present appearances indicate. When we have pro- 
ceeded so far as to have finished two school rooms, our en- 
treaties for a teacher qualified to sustain the reputation of 
the first literary school in Oregon will know no denial. To 
me it seems that we shall be brought to a Thermopylae. We 
have taken strong encouragement from your letters and re- 
ports that we shall not be disappointed and we have given 
publicity to our sanguine expectations. Our school also is 
increasing in numbers and improvements and will very soon 
call for the labors of two men in the higher department and 
a teacher in the primary department. This would be the 
case at this time, if we had a boarding-house connected with 
the school where students could board for four or five dol- 
lars per week; but at present board is from $10 to $12 per 
week, washings not included. We need to build a boarding- 
house and find some good eastern family to come and take 
charge of it, who would be satisfied with a steady increase 
of property and a conviction of being instrumental of great 



302 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

good to Oregon and the world. Would to God that such 
a man could be found in some of our older churches who 
would be able and willing to enter into such an enterprise. 
Such a department, well filled, would, no doubt, open the 
way for scores every year to commence an education under 
the influence of the gospel. We ardently hope you will 
spare no ordinary efforts to secure us one teacher at least 
who will stand high in moral and literary attainments. 

We have another subject nearly allied to this, to which 
I wish to call the attention of your Board, because 1 suppose 
it can be done better through that channel than any other 
now open. It is this : We now have several rising towns 
just beginning to spring up at points which will not fail to 
become important business places. The proprietors of these 
townsites and the citizens will spare no pains, and I had 
almost said means, to build a good school house and sustain 
a good teacher who will give promise of some permanency. 
Now, had we at this time, and from this time forward for 
four or five years at least, a few good Baptist teachers of 
leading minds, they might enter into a profitable business to 
themselves and be exceedingly useful to the cause of Christ 
and general education. Such an enterprise would no doubt 
lay the foundation for the establishment of Baptist churches 
in these towns at a very early period in the history of the 
towns. I know now of a place where a preacher who would 
consent to take a school might grow up with the people, 
and his family, if not large, would be easily sustained from 
the first. The people — men of enterprise — are solicitous on 
the subject. I could now name several such places on the 
Columbia and the Willamette below the head of tide water. 
Our Methodist brethren, ever awake to secure vantage 
ground, are now negotiating with the proprietors of Port- 
land, twelve miles below this place, and will no doubt soon 
have there a school in operation belonging to the Methodist 
Church and built and sustained, so far as funds are concern- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 303 

ed, by the proprietors and citizens of Portland.-^'' We can 
find employment at this time for more than a dozen good 
teachers in our territory, where they would be well paid and 
at the same time opening the way for fourfold that number 
more. As it respects our want of ministers, allow me to re- 
peat the request with earnestness that your Board make an 
appointment for a minister to labor at Astoria, Pacific City 
and Clatsop Plains as soon as you can find a man who is 
suited to the place. The great commercial city for Oregon 
must rise at the mouth of the Columbia. This must be the 
key to the whole country. We have a fair proportion of Bap- 
tist members and adherents there, and I shall never rest 
when I think of this place till it is occupied. A Brother 
Newell,2i8 formerly a teacher of music in N. Y. and Au- 
burn, is in Pacific City and will probably take his family to 
that place. The Baptist interest is rising in Salem, the seat 
of the Methodist Institute, and a church will be constituted 
in a few weeks at that place.^^^ I have referred your Board 
to tliis place on a former occasion. An efficient minister 
would soon find his support there, by your aid, in a few 
years. This is the best point in all the upper country from 
which to reach all points in the Willamette Valley. x\nother 
minister is wanted about as much on the west side of the 
river five miles above at a new town called Cincinnati.^^o 
This place is in the bounds of the La Creole Church, form- 
erly called Rick-re-All. Two ministers thus located would 
always be near each other to counsel and give aid and at 
the same time would each have a wide and rich field on each 
side of the river. Another minister is much needed on Tual- 
atin Plains. This is the strongest church in the Ter. and 
would do their duty as they learned it. The immigrants to 



217 This was Portland Academy and Female Seminary. The building was com- 
pleted in November, 1851, largely through the efforts of Rev. J. H. Wilbur. Wm. 
D. Fenton, Father Wilbur and His Work, Ore. Hist. Sec. Quar. X:21. 

218 George P. Newell (1819-1886) was a native of England, but had lived in 
America some years before coming to Oregon in 1850. He was Government Sur- 
veyor and Inspector of Customs at Pacific City for three years, and was for fifteen 
years a deacon in the Oregon City Church. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:72. 

219 See note 185. 

220 The town was laid out by A. C. R. Shaw. The name is now Eola. — G. H. 
Himes. 



304 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

California are, many of them, turning their course to the 
Willamette Valley and others to the Puget Sound.^^i Im- 
migrants are now daily arriving, and every vessel and steam- 
er from California is bringing, the disappointed miners; it is 
confidently expected that we shall have our population more 
than doubled before next April. Your Board will soon see 
the necessity of making special effort for Oregon, as well 
as California. I often feel almost worn out in the multiplici- 
ty of my labors, yet I have never felt more the importance 
of working while the lamp burns and throwing all over into 
the hands of the Lord than I have the past summer. God 
has wonderfully blessed my poor frail body with strength. 
We are now out of school books. Will you not induce some 
friend of youthful education in Oregon to raise some school 
books — Saunder's series, or Angel's, if better; Thompson's 
arithmetic ; a few grammars and books of philosophy, his- 
tory and astronomy, adapted to academies — and have them 
shipped? Could not a society of young men be formed in 
your city who will furnish us with books as we may order 
them, so that we might have time to sell them and refund 
the money, with profit enough to pay them for the labor? 
There are now no school books or singing books suited to 
teach church music in Oregon. Do think of us. 
Respectfully and affectionately yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Nov. 14, 1850. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Oct. 1, 1850. 
The Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Miss. Soc. : ' 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society for the second quarter 
(under the commission bearing date April 1, 1850) ending Oc- 
tober 1st, 1850. I statedly supplied the station in this place 



221 The first American settlement in the Puget Sound country was in 1845. 
By 1850 there were possibly one hundred American citizens in that region; and 
trade had just begun in American bottoms. The Hudson Bay_ Company had, of 
course, come in some years before the Americans. — Bancroft, Hist, of Washington, 
Idaho and Montana, pp. 2-17. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 305 

half of my time and the station at Milwaukie one Sabbath a 
month. Milwaukie is a rising village on the east bank of the 
Willamette near the head of ship navigation and six miles be- 
low this place.-^- I preached the remainder of the time in this 
place and vicinity. I have labored thirteen weeks in this quar- 
ter, preached 21 sermons, delivered no lectures except to my 
school and Sabbath school. Baptized none, obtained no signa- 
tures to the temperance pledge, have not organized any 
church, aided in no ordination. We established a weekly 
prayer meeting in this place about five weeks since ; have at- 
tended all its meetings. Visited religiously twenty families 
and individuals, visited no common schools, traveled to and 
from my appointments 40 miles. No persons have been receiv- 
ed by letter or by experience and I know of no person who 
has experienced a hope in Christ. No young men in our 
churches to whom I preach preparing for the ministry. Our 
sisters in this place have established a monthly concert of 
prayer for the cause of missions. My people have paid me 
during the quarter $25 for my salary, but nothing for any 
missionary society. I have the superintendence of the Sab- 
bath school ill this church and conduct the Bible class ex- 
cept when absent. We have four teachers and about 25 
children; library, about 150 volumes. My Bible class varies 
from four to eight or ten, mostly members of my day school. 
My day school embraces about fifty in an average attend- 
ance, but I have had 70 different scholars since the present 
quarter commenced, which has now been in progress three 
weeks. My daughter devotes most of her time as an assist- 
tant. Our prospects as a whole are far better for building up 
a permanent interest in this place and the whole Territory 
than at any period since we have been in Oregon. 

Churches are beginning to feel the importance of liberat- 
ing the ministry from secular labor and care. 

I have secured a deed for four town lots in Portland for a 



222 Ocean-going ships stopped coming to Milwaukie about 1852. — G. H. Himes. 



306 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Baptist church property.--^ Since the first of January I 
have paid by way of estabHshing our school not far from 
$300 in securing the site, $50 to the erecting of a building 
on land, $50 towards ceiling our meeting house and have $100 
more to meet on my subscription for our school building be- 
fore next summer and have given no less than $100 of time 
in soliciting subscriptions and collecting funds for our school 
building. I do not name this to boast of my liberality. But 
we have entered upon the work and there seems to be an im- 
perious necessity laid on the few friends who have taken 
hold of it. The rainy season has commenced and our school 
building is not enclosed. We have therefore to fit up our 
meeting house for the winter. I wish you to send Mrs. Fisher 
the Mothers' Journal and pay for it from my salary. We 
are in great want of religious periodicals to circulate among 
the churches and our members. Numbers of them would 
gladly pay for them, if the proprietors would run the risk 
of conveyance of the money. But they seem unwilling to paj 
their money and forward it and not receive the papers. We 
could obviate this difficulty by ordering you to pay for the 
periodicals from our salaries, but our salaries in N. Y. are 
worth from 75 to 400 per cent more to us than the money is 
here, and, with the great expense of living here and the respon- 
sibilities in carrying on the work before us, we cannot make 
that sacrifice. We will get the subscribers, collect the mon- 
ey and forward it faithfully free of charge for our services, 
if the proprietors of the papers will allow us to forward it 
at their risk. We will also pay the per cent for transporta- 
tion. We feel that after the preaching of the Word, our 
brethren cannot be profited so much in any other way by 
being led into the duties of the consistent Christian as 
through the medium of the Christian press. 

Br. Mahlom Brock has subscribed and paid for the Moth- 



223 The First Baptist Church of Portland was not organized until 1855. Mat- 
toon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:14. Mattoon says that Rev. H. Johnson obtained the 
property for the church in 1850, and gives it as a half-block on the corner of Fourth 
and Alder Streets. Ibid. p. 140. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 307 

ers' Journal and the Home Mission Record 224 ^nd I could 
have numbers of other similar subscriptions, if I could in- 
sure the papers. If you think best to accede to the proposals 
made in this, write me at your earliest convenience. We 
wish to know if the proprietors of the New York Recorder 
and the Mothers' Journal will do the same. We wish you 
to be reminded anew that we are almost discouraged in re- 
lation to the hope of your furnishing us a suitable teacher 
by the opening of spring. God being my helper, I will try 
and sustain the school till you send us a suitable man to 
sustain at least a part of the responsibilities of our school. 
Then again we are entirely out of school books and there 
are none to be had in the country. Cannot you send us 
some? We will sell them so that we can refund the money 
with ten or 20 per cent, perhaps more. 

Then we very much need preachers for the places I men- 
tioned to you in the letter I forwarded to you by the last 
mail. 

I have received no letter from you since the one you sent 
accompanying the commission of the first of April last. 
All which is respectfully submitted in great haste, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Oregon City. 
Received Dec. 9, 1850. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Nov. 12, 1850. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill. 
Dear Brother : 

Yours under date of Sept 4th, 7th, 9th, together with a 
letter from Rev. Geo. C. Chandler of Aug. 19, were received 
last mail and I now hasten to answer them in brief so as to 
have them leave by the next steamer. By Divine favor my 
health and that of my family have been unusually good 
through the season, notwithstanding the unusual amount 01 



224 "The Home Mission Record" was the official publication of the Baptist 
Home Mission Society and was first published in 1849. Bap. Home Missions in N. 
Am. 1832-1882, p. 541. 



308 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

labor on my hands. We were much rejoiced to learn that 
you had succeeded in securing the services of our esteemed 
Br. Chandler for Oregon, but regret that he must be so long 
detained from the field so muchj needing his labors. We 
hoped confidently that I should have been relieved from at 
least a part of the responsibilities of the school before another 
summer opened upon us. But now, should our school pros- 
per as the present signs seem to indicate and we should be 
able to complete our building and open a boarding house at 
moderate charge, we shall have more scholars than two men 
can faithfully teach, unless th^ common school system should 
go into effect in our city.^-^ Should this take effect, our 
school will be reduced in numbers, but not injured in char- 
acter. We must aim at elevating the character of the school 
as fast as the demands of the people require it. W^e know 
nothing of Mr. Thurston's arrangements with teachers for Or- 
egon City.226 We as a Board of Trustees for the Oregon 
City College have never thought of corresponding with any 
man or body of men to meet our demands but your Board. 
And we see no good reason at this time for changing our pol- 
icy. We ardently trust that your Board will not let the ap- 
pointment of Br. Chandler fail through any rumor you may 
hear from Boston or Washington. Should a good Baptist 
teacher reach Oregon and find himself disappointed in pros- 
pects, we should of course do what we could to introduce 
him to useful employment, but we have no thought of filling 
this vacancy with any other than the man of your appoint- 
ment. The average number of our school this quarter is be- 
tween 50 and 60 and we have had more than 80 different 
scholars since the quarter commenced. You will see by this 
that I have work enough for one man aside from my min- 
isterial duties. We are obliged to suspend the work of our 
house for a few weeks in consequence of the sickness of Sis- 



225 This refers to the efforts made in 1849 to establish a public school system 
in Oregon City. Rev. G. H. Atkinson was appointed school commissioner, but the 
system of free graded schools was deemed too expensive, and the "female seminary" 
was opened instead. Mrs. E. E. Dye, in Joseph Gaston, Portland, Its History and 
Builders, Portland, 1911; 1 :66S. 

226 See note 211. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 309 

ter Johnson, which has necessarily engrossed Br. Johnson's 
time and care for the last four weeks, but hope the work will 
soon be progressing. But the rainy season will not allow us 
to hope to be able to occupy the building till the opening of 
another spring. Our lumber is all green and it is becoming 
difficult to collect subscriptions fast. 

The peculiar features of the Oregon land bill make it un- 
safe for us to leave the college claim unoccupied after the 
first day of next month.^^^ It therefore devolves upon me 
to move onto the claim. The erecting a temporary house 
claims some of my time, when it is much needed to forward 
the work of our school house, but we trust God will give us 
patience and strength to go through this part of the work. 
I trust you will make good use of Br. Chandler's time while 
in th'e old states in making him acquainted with the most 
efficient patrons of education and securing so much of public 
favor as will insure to our institution that kind of aid which 
must be derived from abroad.^^* I mean books and necessary 
apparatus. School books at this time cannot be had in Oregon. 
This day four scholars were taken out of my school purely 
because no school books could be obtained in the country. 
And, unless we get books soon, similar cases will be no un- 
common ocurrence with us. 

November 16. — Arrangements should be entered into im- 
mediately to keep our school supplied with school books, at 
least, without fail. I wrote you on this subject in my last. 
We should be kept constantly advised of the best systems of 
common school books and classical text books. I hope Br. 
Chandler will make the necessary arrangements with some 
book store or young men's association to meet our wants. I 
have written the Cor. Sec. A. B. Publication Society on the 
importance of supplying Oregon in part with religious read- 



227 The organic act organizing- Oregon Territory had made void all titles ob- 
tained under the laws of the provisional government. By the donation land law of 
1850 a four-years' residence was required before title could be obtained to the lands 
granted under it. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:260-261. 

228 Mr. Chandler originally came to Oregon to take charge of the school in 
Oregon City. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:76. See also note 205. 



310 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ing. Thiat Society has had a missionary agent in Oregon 
j^Qj-g229 than a year when money has been plenty and books 
scarce and almost everybody asking for religious books and 
the agent not a book to sell. And that too, when the agent 
could probably do ten times the amount of work for the 
country with his buggy of books by visiting and preaching 
■and selling truth from house to house that he will unaided by 
this valuable auxiliary. I venture the opinion that no part of 
the union has opened a more inviting field for this work than 
this territory. In ^addition to this, we have not a church of our 
order m the country with half a supply of hymn books, and 
no note books.^^o j^\\ ^his with a people who are every day be- 
coming more and more conscious that their children must be 
put on an equality with the rising generation on the Atlantic 
coast. Our gold is fast going to build up eastern cities and en- 
rich the old states and we shall be less able to patronize this 
cause than at this time and there will be greater difficulties in 
training the people to a spirit of enlarged benevolence. Could 
our colporter be furnished with such works as he might order 
it would be a source of great influence to every Baptist min- 
ister in Oregon, of incalculable benefit to fortify the public 
mind against error and afford a good profit to the Society. 
Please urge this matter upon the consideration of that Soc.'s 
Board. Immigration is rapidly coming in by land and by wa- 
ter.231 jt is now time for Christians to work. I hope your 
Board will appoint Br. Snelling as your missionary; it will do 
good, more so than a man of the same ability from the States. 
For explanation on this subject I refer you to Br. Johnson's 
letter. I should write to Br. Chandler, but I know not where 
to direct a letter at this time. If he comes with an ox team, 
let him have good, substantial oxen of 4, 5 and 6 years of 
2igQ232 Horses will do if he gets good ones and comes in 



229 This was Rev. Richmond Cheadle. See note 188. 

230 The "note books" refer to books giving the music for the hymns. 

231 The immigration of 1850 amounted, so Bancroft says, to about eight thou- 
sand. Hist, of Ore. 11:174. 

This is four times the estimate of Young. See note 305. Young's estimate, 
however, probably refers only to those who came overland. 

232 Mr. Chandler finally came overland, but some of his goods came by sea. 
See letters of Sept. 3, and August 8, 1851. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 311 

the first train, which he should do by all means, and start 
as early as he can travel, and take along with him oats and 
corn to feed his team principally for the first month, before 
the grass starts much. Drive moderately at first, have plenty 
of teams so that two horses may travel behind the wagon, 
and exchange horses each alternate day, and work each pair 
of horses two days in successioin. Let provisions be selected 
in proportion to the amount of nutrition they contain to the 
pound. Let him take dried fruit, dried beef and the fattest 
pork he can find without bone, well cured. Let him take 
nothing heavy, except clothing, and send his books by water, 
put up so that they will not get wet. Let him have good In- 
dia rubber cloths to sleep on and under. Tell him to take 
special care of hrs team and, if he comes with horses, never 
let them go to hunt stray cattle, if he can avoid it and keep 
peace with the caravan. Tell him to be sure to cross at or 
near Council Bluffs and keep the north side of the Platte all 
the way and never touch the old road till he reaches the 
Sweet Water and he will save several days' travel and avoid 
all the bad water courses. I speak advisedly on this subject. 
If he comes with a horse team, he should have mares. He 
will need much grace, but if he does not take too much care 
and labor on himself the journey will be pleasant and healthy 
to himself and family. May God bless him and his and make 
them a lasting blessing to Oregon. 

Yours affectionately, 
EZRA FISHER. 
Received Jan. 25, 1851. 



Oregon City, Ore., Jan. 17, 1851. 
To Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mis. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society for the quarter ending 
January 1st, 1851. 



312 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

I have labored thirteen weeks in the quarter in the work 
of the ministry, so far as I could in connection with my varied 
and urgent duties with our school, preached 20 sermons, de- 
livered twelve lectures to our Sabbath school and Bible 
classes, attended 14 prayer and church meetings, visited 
religiously 15 families and other persons, weekly recommend 
the cause of Christ to my school, visited no common school, 
baptized none, obtained no signatures to the temperance 
pledge direct; no church organized, attended no ordination; 
traveled to and from my appointments 20 miles; no persons 
have been received by letter or experience; no hopeful con- 
versions; no young men preparing for the ministry; monthly 
concert not observed as yet. My people have paid during 
the quarter nothing for any missionary or benevolent society; 
I have received ten dollars for my salary; our people have 
paid $150 to ceil our meeting house, which is still our school 
room. Connected with the churches to which I preach are 
two Sabbath schools, one in this place under my charge 
having five teachers and 25 scholars, with a library of about 
150 volumes; the other is la mixed school, about ten of the 
children from Baptist families and one or two of the teachers. 

N. B. — I have not reported the number of the members 
received to the church in this place as Br. Johnson acts as 
moderator, is present at all our church meetings and has 
undoubtedly reported them. They shouldn't be reported 
twice. I have reported the state of our Sabbath school be- 
cause this work rests on me. While I am necessarily em- 
ployed as teacher and have the care of the school on my 
hands, I must confine my labors to this place and vicinity. 
I preach one Sabbath in four at Milwaukie where our pros- 
pects are flattering for building up a good church in the 
course of the coming year. We contemplate commencing 
our labors in Portland, a commercial town of 800 or 1000 
souls, twelve miles below this, in a few months. Till Brother 
Chandler arrives it seems indispensable that Brother Johnson 
and myself make this place our residence. The cause of 
temperance is at this time on the ascendant in our city. We 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 313 

are holding weekly meetings, with encouraging prospects. 
One of my scholars succeeded last week in obtaining about 
fifteen names of his fellow students to the pledge. Our 
sisters sustain a monthly prayer meeting. 

The passage of the Oregon Land bill is operating tempor- 
arily against our school by calling some of our supporters 
with their families to leave town and settle on their land. 
Yet our school this quarter numbers about fifty and is in- 
creasing. We think we shall feel the effect of the bill still 
more through the coming summer, probably not longer. Our 
school building moves forward slowly. Money is constantly 
becoming more scarce and we find it hard collecting sub- 
scriptions, yet our motto is Onward. As soon as the days 
become a little longer and the travelling improved I intend, 
God granting, to take the subscription paper mornings and 
evenings and try what can be done by way of collecting and 
enlarging the subscriptions. 

Perhaps we shall have to secure the labors of some person 
for two months in this work during the season. We have 
contracted for enclosing the house and that work is on the 
way and the house will be ready for painting as soon as the 
rainy season passes. We shall not be ready to occupy the 
house before June, perhaps Aug. or Sept. We trust we shall 
not fail of receiving a reinforcement in Br. Chandler, and we 
hope others. It is ruinous to abandon this work or even to 
suspend operations at this time. We could better do it after 
the house is completed. Should we suspend at this time, the 
public would say this people attempted to build and were 
not able, we should lose public confidence, consequently 
pecuniary aid, and our unfinished work would mock us. At 
present we 'are assured that we are securing public approba- 
tion. Our community is weekly increasing with an energetic, 
enterprising people, and the demand for ministerial labor 
this year will be triple that of last summer. I am in a strait 
betwixt the two, but I see no other way than to hold to the 
school till relief comes, preach as much as I can and leave 



314 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

all with God. I moved to our College claim the 29th of Nov. 

Yours in gospel bonds, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Oregon City. 
Received March 10, 1851. 
On Margin: 

N. B. — I have received no letter from you since the one 
under date of Sept. 4th and 7th informing me of Br. Chand- 
ler's appointment. I have answered them. 



Oregon City, Feb. 17, 1851. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

Yours under date Oct. 19th, Nov. 11th and Dec. 9th have 
all come to hand, together with duplicates of the invoice of 
goods and bills of lading of the same on board the bark 
Francis and Louisa. We hope they may arrive safe in the 
month of April, but I have taken my pen in haste, worn out 
with fatigue, to make another application to your Board for 
a re-appointment for one year. I will here insert a copy of 
the requests from the church in this place and from the 
Board of Trustees of the Oregon City College. 

At the regular church meeting Feb. 1, 1851, voted to 
recommend Elder Ezra Fisher to the Board of the A. B. H. 
Mission Socy. for re-appointment to labor in this place and 
vicinity for the term of one year. 
F. A. COLLARD,233 HEZEKIAH JOHNSON, 

Clerk. Mod. 

Oregon City, Feb. 6th, 1851. 

This is to certify that at a meeting of the Trustees of the 
Oregon City College held at the Baptist meeting house in 
said city on the day and year first aforesaid it was agreed to 
recommend to the Board of the A. B. H. Mission Soc. Elder 



233 F. A. Collard came to Oregon in 1847. He later served three terms in the 
legislature. Hist, of Willamette Valley, p. 669. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 315 

Ezra Fisher as their missionary in Oregon for the term of 

one year from the first day of April next. 

W. T. MATLOCK,234 E. FISHER, 

Secretary. Chairman. 

My labors will be one fourth of the time in this city, 
probably one fourth of the time at Linn City on the opposite 
side of the river from this city, one fourth of the time at 
INIilwaukie, at the request of brethren there, and part of the 
time at Portland. It seemed to me desirable that Br. 
Johnson should continue his labors in this place the coming 
year. I therefore moved his call to the pastoral care of our 
little church. I shall find all the labor I can possibly per- 
form with my school on my hands. We are advancing slowly 
with our school house. It is a hard time to collect, and 
almost all our men are going to the mines this spring. Very 
extravagant reports come from the Klamath mines, pretty 
well authenticated, of very rich mines of gold on the waters of 
that stream.2-55 Probably two thirds of the men in the terri- 
tory will go for gold during the spring, if we receive no coun- 
ter reports. At present the whole community is in a high 
state of excitement. We think things will become settled 
within a few months and hope the farming community will 
return permanently to their farms. We shall do all we can, 
in connection with all our other cares, this spring and the 
ensuing summer to carry the work (of building) forward and 
hope to have two rooms ready for occupancy before the ar- 
rival of Brs. Chandler and Read. Our school has already 
suffered the loss of several of the young men from the gold 
excitement, and more will go to the mines. Yet they will 
probably return in the fall, at least a part of them. Labor 
will be extravagantly high the coming season and lumber 
will be scarce. We dare not oppose the providences of God 

234 W. T. Matlock was several times a member of the territorial legislature. 
He was a delegate to the first Republican state convention, and was at one time re- 
ceiver of the U. S. Land Office. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:72, 143, 158, 296, 418, 
458. 

235 Gold was first found in the tributaries of the Klamath in the spring of 
1850. In July discoveries were made on the main Klamath. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 
11:185. 



316 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

in this new excitement and we think we can better calculate 
on results than when the mines were first discov- 
ered in California. Our men will not leave our Territory. 
Immigration is constantly pouring in upon us. The mining is 
to be done in our own territory and in six or eight months 
our valley will be thronged with immortal beings. Gold will 
either be plentiful or labor will be comparatively cheap. The 
world's wickedness will be thrown upon us. How much 
we need strong faith and warm hearts to meet and con- 
quer the enemy by love ! 

Our school numbers about fifty this term. When our re- 
inforcement arrives we hope to make such a disposition of 
the labor as will most glorify God. Brother Johnson and 
myself have concluded to order the Home Mission Record 
as fast as we obtain subscribers and pay for the paper out 
of our salary at N. Y. till it amounts to five dollars each, 
and that will be as much as will meet the wants of our 
brethren in Oregon the present season probably. We would 
gladly do ten fold that amount, if we were able, but our 
family expenses are great and we are economizing to the 
extent of our abilities to meet the claims of our schools and 
secure public confidence. I trust God will carry us through 
and bless the efforts. 

I herein send you the names of Mahlom Brock, Oregon 
City Post Office, and J. D. Garrett and Hector Campbell, 
Milwaukie Post Office, as subscribers for the Home Mis- 
sion Record. Please forward them to said offices. 

Give my sincere thanks to Dr. Williamsons foj. consti- 
tuting me a life member of your Society. I am altogether 
unworthy the honor of that distinguished servant of Christ. 
The Lord multiply his means and enlarge his liberality to 
this great Christian enterprise. My personal thanks to Dr. 



236 This was probably Rev. William R. Williams, at that time pastor of the 
Amity Street Baptist Church of New York City. Am. Encyc. XVI :641. 

A person could be made a life member of the Home Mission Society by the 
payment of $30.00. — Bap. Home Missions in N. Am. 1832-1882, p. 350. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 317 

Cone237 for the donation to our College library. When the 
books arrive, the Board will take action on the subject. 

Yours with esteem, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received April 21, 1851. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Apr. 7th, 1851. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mis. Soc. : 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society for the fourth quarter 
of the year ending April 1, 1851. I have labored (13) thir- 
teen weeks in the quarter; preached eighteen (18) sermons; 
delivered six (6) lectures on moral and benevolent sub- 
jects; attended ten (10) prayer and other religious meet- 
ings, visited religiously twelve (12) families and individuals, 
baptized none, obtained no signatures to the temperance 
pledge, have not assisted in the organization of any church 
or the ordination of any minister; have traveled (50) fifty 
miles to and from my appointments, received none by letter, 
none by experience ; we know of none hopefully converted, 
no young men preparing for the ministry, monthly concert 
not observed. 

The people to whom I preach have paid nothing during 
the quarter for any of the missionary societies or Bible so- 
ciety ; nothing toward my salary ; the church has done noth- 
ing by way of building meeting house. Sabbath school is in 
operation in this place with 4 teachers and about 16 scholars 
and about 150 volumes in the library. The Bible class is 
connected with the school and numbers but four. 

My school occupies most of my time through the week. 
We read the Scriptures twice each day and I frequently ac- 
company this exercise with a few remarks and, as often as I 
judge it is useful, address the school on the great subject of 



237 This was Rev. Spencer Houghton Cone, DD., (1785-1855). He was a lead- 
ing member of the Baptist denomination at this time, and pastor of the First Bap- 
tist Church of New York City. — Am Encyc. V, 220. 



318 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

their relations and obligations to God, to man and to them- 
selves. I open and close the school each day by prayer. I 
preach at two other points besides this place, one on the op- 
posite side of the river^^s and the other at Milwaukie, six 
miles below this place. I contemplate commencing monthly 
preaching at Portland in a few weeks, if my health w^ill al- 
low me to perform the labor.^-'^ Many of the men of the 
territory are in the mines. Brother Snelling is among the 
number, so that we have but little preaching in the country. 
This spring I hardly dare contemplate our condition of feeble 
churches left without pastors while I am confined within the 
walls of a school house. I am sometimes half resolved to 
leave the school in the bands of such a teacher as we can se- 
cure, and travel through the valley, visit, preach and collect 
funds for the school building. But we fear the consequences 
of a change in teachers before our expected teachers arrive. 
We commenced our spring quarter today with 40 scholars, 
notwithstanding the gold excitement and the removal for a 
a time of nearly all the remnant of our large boys for farm- 
ing purposes during the summer. The number will increase 
for the ensuing two weeks. Our money has been drained off 
to build up eastern cities and farming is greatly neglected 
for the mines. Consequently it is difficult to collect for car- 
rying forward our building and labor is extravagantly high. 
That work must progress slowly this summer. We hope to 
make a special effort in the fall for this work ; I fear not be- 
fore, unless I leave the school next quarter. We more need 
an efficient preacher as colporter for the A. B. Publication 
Soc, who would do some work for the Bible Society, than 
an agent for the Bible Society to the neglect of the Publica- 
tion Society. But if the Publication Society do not do this 
work through their agent, we will be glad to see your pro- 
posed enterprise take effect. Should the Bible Soc. send us 
an agent, or Bibles, they will do well to send a large pro- 



238 This was Linn City. 

239 The author apparently soon began holding occasional services in Portland 
in the Congregational meeting-house. They were continued until October, 1854, 
when a Baptist minister settled in Portland.— Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 11:14. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 319 

portion of large Bibles suitable for family Bibles. There has 
been an inquiry for them for a long time, when small Bibles 
cannot be sold for cost. Every evangelical society has Bibles 
in the country and the people have generally obtained Bibles 
and Testaments gratuitously, or at very low price, till the 
country has become tolerably supplied. But our coming pop- 
ulation will create a large demand for more next year. 

We are truly gratified to learn that interests in Oregon 
are beginning to receive a share in the sympathies of our 
trans-mountain brethren. My personal thanks to Dr. Pike for 
the part of the philosophical apparatus which he so gener- 
ously donated for the institution. In due time, on the recep- 
tion of the gift, he will receive an expression from the Bo'ard. 

I received the boxes you shipped on board the Grecian. I 
have received the bill of lading for the goods you shipped me 
on board the bark Francis and Louisa ; also the bills of lad- 
ing of the goods shipped for Br. Chandler on board the Gold- 
en Age. 

Affectionately yours, 
EZRA FISHER, 
Received June 3, 1851. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., July 1, 1851. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home INIission Soc. : 

Herein I send my report of labor under the appointment of 
the Home Mission Society for the first quarter ending July 1, 
1851. My field comprises the church at Oregon City, the 
community at Linn City, Milwaukie and vicinity and Port- 
land. At the three last named places we have as yet no 
church. 

I have labored 13 weeks in the quarter, preached 21 ser- 
mons, delivered no lectures on moral and benevolent subjects, 
attended three church meetings and two prayer meetings, vis- 
ited religiously twenty families and individuals, no common 
schools, baptized none, obtained no signatures to the temper- 



320 ' CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ance pledge, have assisted at the organization of no church, 
no ordination, have traveled to and from my appointments 
126 miles, received none by letter, none by experience and 
none to my knowledge has been hopefully converted. No 
young men in the church preparing for the ministry. Monthly 
concert of prayer is not observed. My people have paid during 
the quarter for the Home Mission Society nothing and noth- 
ing for any other benevolent society. Church has done noth- 
ing by way of building meeting houses. I have received from 
individuals for my support as a minister $10.00. Connected 
with the congregations to which I preach are two Sabbath 
schools, one with the church in this place, having three teach- 
ers, 18 scholars and about 150 volumes; the other at Mil- 
waukie, a promiscuous school, with one Baptist teacher and 
seven scholars of Baptist family. There is also a Bible class 
with five pupils connected with the Sabbath school in Oregon 
City which I teach one fourth of the time. Our school is 
about as numerous as at any preceding period. My confine- 
ment in school and the necessary labor and care prevent my 
laboring so much in the ministry direct as I should otherwise 
do, yet I trust we are laying the foundation for more efficient 
work hereafter. Our school building is now being enclosed 
and we hope to have two rooms finished by the time of the 
arrival of Brs. Chandler and Read. I have most of the labor 
of raising subscriptions for the work. More than one third 
of the old subscriptions cannot be made available at present, 
mostly by means of a change in the moneyed matters of the 
subscribers. We have now most of the lumber engaged and 
paid for to carry the work on as far as above specified and as 
yet have no debts hanging over us ; but I fear my confine- 
ment in the school and Br. Johnson's necessary callings will 
leave the building one or two thousand dollars in debt, when 
fit for use,which must be met by an appeal to the public, as 
soon as Br. Chandler arrives, which our brethren tell me I 
will have to do. 

You see, dear brother, that I have upon me the labor of 
two men now and when it will be less is known only by Him 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 321 

whom we serve. I have just returned from our association 
held in Tualatin Plains. Our business was transacted with 
great unanimity. Resolutions were passed in favor of the 
cause of home missions, American and Foreign Bible Society, 
American Bap. Pub. Soc, American Tract Society, the Sunday 
school cause and religious periodicals. Our congregations were 
unusually large and solemn. We must leave the results with 
God, but confidently hope the cause which we represent in 
Oregon is advancing. Three churches were added to our asso- 
ciation during the anniversary. I am appointed to correspond 
with you on the subject of an exploring agent and the appoint- 
ment of a missionary for Salem, which I must defer till after 
the next mail. I received my commission, under date of May 
2d, and accompanying letter. I will attend to the deficiency on 
the part of the church and forward the concurrent certificates 
in my next. When Br. Chandler arrives, we must have an en- 
tire change in our fields of labor and we have a committee 
appointed by our association to call a convention of the breth- 
ren to consult on the best method of promoting the cause of 
Christianity and education in Oregon, immediately on the 
arrival of Br. Chandler. Would it not be well for your Board 
to authorize your missionaries in this territory to make such 
changes at that time as the said convention may deem neces- 
sary for the furtherance of the cause of Christ? Please write 
me immediately on this subject. 

I will here insert the following names as subscribers for the 
Home Mission Record : Rev. Richmond Cheadle, Santiam 
Post Office, Elmer Keys, do, Edward T. Lenox, Hillsboro P. 
O., James S. Holman, Euckiamute. 

Yours in gospel fellowship, 
EZRA FISHER, 
Missionary at Oregon City and vicinity. 
N. B. — I am waiting with prayerful solicitude for the time 
to arrive when I may do my duty as a servant of God and 
leave the walls of the school and meet the suffering wants 
of some of the feeble, famishing churches in the valley. Br. 



322 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Newell 240 ^yas here today, broken in spirit at the loss of his 
dear wife and child. Br. Coe has spent one night with us ; am 
much pleased with him. Dea. Failing ^^i and sons spent two 
nights with us ; were well. Will stop at present at Portland. 
I hope we shall be able during the present season to consti- 
tute a church at Portland. 

Yours, 
Received Aug. 22, 1851. E.F. 



Aug. 8, 1851. 
I received all the goods shipped on board the bark Ellen 
and Louisa which the bill of lading calls for. I learn too 
that the Golden Age is at Portland and I have made arrange- 
ments to have Br. Chandler's goods stored free of charge till 
he arrives. I suppose we have now for the first time a tol- 
erable supply of books of the A. Bap. Publication Soc's pub- 
lications and I trust Elder Cheadle, their Colporter, will ex- 
ert a good influence with these works in his hands. The im- 
migration from California will probably be large the coming 
winter and even for a longer time. I am informed that the 
Spanish titles to the land are generally good and the result 
will be many American citizens who would like lands in 
California will avail themselves of the benefits of the Oregon 
land bill. I think Pacific City will not greatly suffer for the 
want of 'an efficient minister before another summer. Br. 
Newell has been seriously afflicted by the loss of his wife 
and child on the passage and he is as yet somewhat unsettled, 
yet I think we must soon have a good man located at that 
place or Astoria or Clatsop Plains to meet the wants tempo- 
rarily of all that region. He should be a prudent, business- 
like, devoted minister who loves Zion and can resist worldly 
temptations. From this time forward changes must be great 
on the Pacific coast and every improvement must go forward 
with a rapidity unequaled in any new portion of our coun- 



240 See note 218. 

241 Josiah Failing (1806-1877) came to Oregon in 1851 and was prominent in 
business, church and politics. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:69. The two sons were 
John W. and Henry. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 323 

try . Our churches must be supplied with a devoted, thor- 
ough ministry and that ministry must and will, with a love 
approaching to a passion for the work, train the churches 
right. I feel a strong assurance on this subject. 

I am not tired of doing my duty, but I think I shall appre- 
ciate in some measure the responsibilities of the ministry 
more than I have done in past years, should the Lord gra- 
ciously spare my life till I can give over this school into other 
hands. When I look over the moral waste of the Willamette 
Valley and hear the appeals as often as I see the brethren, 
"When will you come and preach to us?" it is almost more 
than I can endure. The interests of our school must not be 
neglected, but, unless we are visited with the outpourings 
of the spirit from on high, we are a ruined people in Oregon. 
Pray for us. 

Yours. 

E. FISHER. 
Received Oct. 6, 1851. 



Oregon City, Sept. 3d, 1851. 
Rev. Benj. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

I received by the last mail two copies of the annual report 
of the A. B. H. M. Soc. for 1851, and Br. Johnson received 
a letter from you. Religious matters in the Territory remain 
much as they were when I last wrote. Our school numbers 
about forty scholars since we dismissed the female depart- 
ment and will be considerably enlarged the next two quarters, 
should our teachers prove to be popular with this people, as 
we trust they will. I have but three weeks after the 
present one in this quarter. Then I hope to be able under 
God to visit the churches through the valley and preach to 
them Saturdays and Sabbaths and, at the same time, raise 
some funds for our building, which lies heavy on our hands 
and heavier on my heart. The work has moved on slowly 
this summer, it being only enclosed, without doors or win- 



324 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

dows. We, however, have part of the glass, and the oil and 
lead for painting. The house is between three and four hun- 
dred dollars in debt. We have about $1000 uncollected on 
our subscription paper and we can probably rely on about 
$200 this fall from that source. We have flooring enough on 
hand to lay the floor for two rooms and a few hundred feet of 
ceiling and may probably get some more lumber on the old 
subscription and more subscribed. 

We had the pleasure of welcoming Br. Chandler to this 
place yesterday, but his family were left sixteen miles back in 
the first settlements this side of the Cascade Mountains. He 
was in health and in good spirits, as were his family and Br. 
Read,2^2 all of whom will be in town this week. We trust 
that from this time we shall be able to do more for our feeble 
churches than formerly and hope we may enjoy an enlarged 
measure of the spirit of our Divine Master. We shall call 
the convention, of which I made mention in my last, about 
the time of the close of my quarter. I rejoice to find that 
you have anticipated the same thing in your letter to Br. 
Johnson. I have discontinued my appointments at Linn City 
on account of the small number of families in that place this 
summer, and commenced preaching once a month at Cane- 
ma,^'^^ a village springing up at the head of the falls on this 
side of the Willamette, one mile above this place. We may con- 
tinue a monthly appointment there after the meeting of the 
convention, but we must not longer neglect the churches in the 
valley above. I should have sent you the concurrent certificate 
of the church244 by the last mail but for the fact that our 
church clerk lives three miles from this place on the other side 
of the Willamette^'^s and I have had no opportunity of seeing 



242 This was Rev. J. S. Read. He had just graduated from Franklin College. 
He taught in the Oregon City School for one school year and then went to South- 
ern Oregon. He returned to Indiana in 1854. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:13. 

243 Canemah began in the later forties. It took its name either from an In- 
dian chief, or from a word meaning a canoe landing; probably the former. — G. H. 
Himes. 

244 These certificates were required by the Home Mission Society to be sent 
in by churches which were asking for the service of its missionaries. 

245 The clerk of the Oregon City Church at this time was F. A. Collard, who 
was then living on his land claim just south of what is now Oswego. — Records of 
First Baptist Church of Ore. City (MS. and records in Clackamas County Court 
House). 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 325 

him for four weeks. At the first meeting I had with the breth- 
ren in Portland they appointed a committee to sign a similar 
certificate, but on my last visit to that place the two most ef- 
ficient brethren were gone to San Francisco on business, and 
thus the matter is delayed. I will now record the vote of the 
church on the subject of application for my appointment and, 
should I not see our clerk before the next mail leaves, I shall 
hand the letter to Br. Johnson for signature. 

Yours, 

E. FISHER. 

Voted to recommend Elder Ezra Fisher to the favorable con- 
sideration of the Home Missionary Society for re-appointment 
for the term of one year. Also voted to invite Elder Ezra 
Fisher to supply the church one fourth of the time. Done at 
the church meeting on the first Saturday in Feb., 1851. 

The 1st Bap. Church at Oregon City concur in all the 
terms of the application made by Elder Fisher in a letter ad- 
dressed to the Corresponding Secretary in Feb. last. 

September 6th, 1851. 

W. T. MATLOCK, 

Clerk pro tem. 

N. B. We have this day had Brs. Chandler and Read in 
attendance and agreed to call the convention of which I 
made mention in my last on Friday the 17th instant. 

Yours, 
Received Nov. 3, 1851. E. F. 



Oct. 1st, 1851. 
To Rev. B. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. B-ap. Home Mission Soc. : 
Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society for the second quarter 
ending Oct. 1, 1851. 

Up to this time my field has comprised Oregon City, Port- 
land, Milwaukie and an out-station at Canema, a rising vil- 
lage half a mile above Oregon City, at the head of the Wil- 



326 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

lamette Falls, which I statedly supply. I have labored 13 
weeks in the quarter, preached 19 sermons, delivered three 
lectures to the Sabbath school in this place, attended three 
ministers' prayer meetings in this place (which are weekly), 
visited religiously 25 families and individuals, visited no com- 
mon schools, but addressed my own weekly, baptized none, 
no signatures to the temperance pledge, organized no church, 
no ordination, traveled to and from my appointments 130 
miles, none received by letter, none by experience, have had 
no hopeful conversions, no young men preparing for the min- 
istry. The monthly concert of prayer is not observed at any 
of my stations. My people have paid nothing during the 
quarter for any missionary or benevolent society. I have re- 
ceived nothing for my salary ; no meeting houses being 
erected. Connected with the church in Oregon City is a Sab- 
bath school of 18 scholars and three teachers and about 150 
volumes in the library. There is also a Bible class with 3 
pupils. 

EZRA FISHER, 

Missionary. 

N. B. — At the meeting of the convention held at this place 
on the 19th and 20th of Sept. last you will see, by referring 
to the minutes which will probably leave in the next mail, 
that the Trustees of the Oregon City College appointed me 
temporarily as agent for that school to collect funds to carry 
on the building now up and enclosed, but between four and 
five hundred dollars in debt. It was thought to be the best 
that could be done. It was hoped that this work might be 
performed without materially diverting me from my minis- 
terial labors. I shall be expected to meet my regular appoint- 
ments twice each month at Portland, or supply them with a 
substitute. You will also see a request from this conven- 
tion that your Board appoint me as a corresponding evan- 
gelist for Oregon (I am not certain that I have the right 
name as I have not the minutes of that convention and quote 
from memory). The name of exploring agent was urgently 
objected to by one and only one of the members of the con- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 327 

vention, but he is a man of influence and with his objections 
against eastern influence. It is understood, however, that 
this evangelist is to perform the duties of an exploring agent. 
It seems necessary that the Willamette and Umpqua valleys^^^ 
be explored or visited by a faithful missionary who will be 
able to make a fair representation of the wants of the de- 
nomination, both to your Board and to the Willamette Asso- 
ciation. The people at the mouth of the Columbia should 
also be visited, and perhaps the settlement at Puget Sound^^'' 
during the next season. Little, if anything, can be expected 
the present year in aid for the support of such an agent above 
what I shall receive from Portland, unless I should supply 
some destitute church a stated portion of the time. Yet the 
scattered members would be encouraged to early organizations 
and be led to appreciate the great utility of the missionary 
organization. Should the winter rains hold off, I hope to visit 
several destitute churches in the upper part of the valley. 
Baptist sentiments seem to be well received, and it is very ob- 
vious that our efforts in the cause of education seem to in- 
spire public confidence in the efficiency of the denomination. 
I will give one instance : A Br. Hill^^s from Missouri came 
to Albany, a county seat on the Willamette about 70 miles 
above this place, and commenced teaching and preaching 
some time last winter. His labors resulted in organizing a 
small church ; the proprietors of the lower part of the to xn 
have built a school house and at our late convention requested 
us to send them a teacher and a preacher, with the assurance 
that the people would help to support him as a minister and 
donate one-fourth of the lots of their town for church pur- 
poses. It is said that they have from forty to sixty. acres laid 



246 The Hudson Bay Company had established a post in the Umpqua Valley 
as early as 1832. — Bancroft, Hist, of N. W. Coast, 11:521. The valley was first 
carefully explored and extensively settled in 1850, largely through the efforts of the 
"Umpqua Town-Site and Colonization Land Company," which was largely financed 
from California.— Bancroft, Hist of Ore. 11:175-183. 

247 See note 390. There were a number of Americans of the immigration of 
1851 who settled on Puget Sound. — Bancroft, Hist, of Wash., Idaho and Montana, 
p. 21. 

248 This was Rev. Reuben Coleman Hill, M. D., (1808-1890). He was born 
in Kentucky and moved to Missouri in 1846, to California in 1850, and to Oregon 
in 1851. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 11:82. 



328 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

out in town lots. We have similar proposals for taking 
schools under our care upon town sites upon the banks of the 
Willamette. If we had a few young men of prudence and en- 
ergy, with a sacrificing spirit, to throw into our county seats 
in the valley above us. no doubt, with the blessings of the 
Great Teacher, an incalculable amount of good might be ac- 
complished. 

The overland immigration is large and mostly in the valley 
and in the Cascade Mountains and will be in in eight or ten 
days.24^ Its number is estimated at from four to five thou- 
sand souls. We are constantly receiving accessions by w^a- 
ter, so that it is thought that our white population by the 
first of March will be at least 30,000. 

Brs. Chandler and Read will enter upon their duties as 
teachers week after next. We expect they will supply this 
church and one or two out stations in the vicinity. Money 
is scarce and crops of wheat and vegetables abundant. I have 
not yet learned whether my appointment as missionary is con- 
firmed, but I have been acting with that expectation and shall 
venture to order you to put me up some family clothing and 
books, in a few days. I am receiving the Christian Chronicle 
regularly and, if it is charged to me, I wish you to arrange 
the matter with the editors and charge that amount to me. 

We fear that Br. Failing will become discouraged in bus- 
iness and leave for N. Y., but still hope God will otherwise 
direct. He is much needed in Oregon. 

Yours in gospel fellowship, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Nov. 19, 1851. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Jan. 30, 1852. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

Yours, bearing date Nov. 29 and mail mark Dec. 9th, con- 



249 See note 154. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 329 

taining a commission for me to act as exploring agent for Or- 
egon for the term of three months, was received by the last 
mail. I now hasten to answer the same and make a few gen- 
eral statements of facts as nearly as I can explain matters 
now in Oregon. Since the arrival of Brs. Chandler and Read 
I have visited YamHill county and church ; spent ten days in 
that county, principally to look over their spiritual wants in 
the absence of Elder SnelHng,25o the former pastor of Yam- 
Hill church. Found the members scattered over half a large 
county and almost disheartened, but they seemed cheered by 
the visit and manifested a desire to enjoy the preached word. 
In this visit, as in all my public labors the past fall and win- 
ter, I have endeavored to make my agency for the school sub- 
serve the interests of the churches rather than make it the 
all engrossing subject. I have preached half my Sabbaths at 
Portland and Milwaukie ; in the morning at the latter place, 
and in the evening at the former. The remaining part of my 
time I have performed labors in the south and southeast part 
of Marion County, on the east side of the Willamette River 
from 20 to 40 miles south from Oregon City and one of the 
most promising agricultural parts of the Willamette Valley, 
in which are located two feeble churches,^^! one of which 
had lost its visibility for the want of the occasional preaching 
of the word. All the former members of the church have 
changed their location and in so doing have thrown them- 
selves into a more commanding position in the same vicin- 
ity. Their position is such that at no distant day two small 
business towns must rise up in their vicinity, one on the Wil- 
lamette about 15 miles below Salem, the other on Pudding- 
River, eight miles east of the landing on the Willamette. 

In looking over the field which God in his providence has 
seen fit to assign us, we are constrained to say, "Ours is a 
goodly heritage," and we feel no inclination to abandon it 



250 Snelling was then in California. 

251 The two churches were the one at French Prairie, organized in 1850, near 
or in the present town of Gervais ; and the Shiloh Church, organized in 1850, at the 
present town of Turner. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. I :9. 

It was probably the French Prairie Church which was so weak. 



330 CORRESPONDE^XE OF THE 

for others, yet we think your Board do not fully appreciate 
all the embarassments under which we, as missionaries and 
churches, labor. Our field is as truly a missionary field as 
any portion of the great field which was contemplated in the 
first organization of the A. B. H. M. Soc. Imagine for a mo- 
ment 200 or 300 American citizens who have been gathering 
upon the waters of Puget Sound252 (the future naval depot 
for Oregon) for the last seven years, and for 'all this time 
have never been visited by a Protestant minister. Now sup- 
pose you were to meet one of these citizens and hear him re- 
late to you the fact that they trade with foreigners and go 
to the Roman church^^s for Sabbath instruction and then 
ask, "Why can you not come over and preach to us, for I 
verily think ours is missionary ground?" What would be 
the feelings of your heart when you are compelled to turn 
them away with an indefinite reply? This is but one case. 
The people settled upon the banks of the Columbia River 
(the great thoroughfare of trade for the valley of Willam- 
ette and the Northern gold mines of Rogue River) from Van- 
couver to Astoria, a distance of 90 miles,^^^ have never had 
preaching of any order save in a very few instances. But a 
few days since an acquaintance of mine residing near a rising 
town which, at no very distant period, will not fail to be a 
place of some importance, asked me if I could not sometime 
come and preach to them, saying he was a wicked man, but 
he had children and had raised them to respect the gospel 
and they and his neighbors wanted to hear preaching and he 
would make his house a comfortable home for any respectable 
minister who would come and preach one sermon and give 
him ten dollars for his part. 

Then, with me, take a bird's eye view of the Willamette, 
whose settlements spread over a territory 180 miles in length 
and from 20 to sixty miles in width, in almost every settle- 



252 See note 247. The trade on the Sound increased largely in 1852-3, and 
several small towns were springing up. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:250. 

253 This church was near Olympia at a place now called Priest's Point Park. — 
G. H. Himes. 

254 The towns of St. Helens, Xlilton, Westport, and Rainier, were all spring- 
ing up about this time. — Bancroft, Hist, of Oregon. 11:251, 252. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 331 

ment of which are found one or more members of our order 
surrounded with men of all religious sects and of no relig- 
ious creed, and exposed to all the disorganizing influences 
peculiar to a country where preaching is but occasional and 
Sabbath day visiting and hunting of loose cattle and wild 
game lare common, and at the same time large portions of 
the men are going to and coming from the mines. Can this 
be regarded as any other than a missionary field in the most 
unqualified sense of the term? Then turn your attention to 
the Umpqua Valley, in which are now two organized coun- 
ties,^^^ and it is said that it is now as thickly peopled as the 
Willamete, with no evangelical minister to break the bread 
of life,^^^ where character is formed with unexampled rapid- 
ity, and no means are wanting to draw the youth into the 
most abandoned habits which the temptations of gold can in- 
spire in the absence of the moral influence of the Bible (for 
men will soon neglect their Bibles if the gospel is not preach- 
ed), and here we must say is a missionary field. Immediately 
south of the Umpqua River, gold diggings begin and that 
portion of the mines between this and the Chasty (Shasta)-^'' 
Mountains, a distance of 140 to 150 miles from north to 
south, is included in the Oregon field. Here thousands of 
our countrymen are constantly engaged in digging gold, 
with no one to minister to them the excellencies of that gos- 
pel which is incomparably more valuable than gold. With 
a few exceptions, the entire population of the Umpqua and 
and the gold regions of Oregon have congregated on onr 
southern border within the term of the last eighteen months. 
Is not Oregon then a missionary field? We desire your 
Board to take another view of our condition. By referring to 
the minutes of our association you will see that we report 



255 Douglas and Umpqua Counties, the former of which had just been or- 
ganized, and Jackson County, which was also organized in January, 1852, comprised 
the Rogue River Valley.— Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:710, 712. 

256 This statement is probably correct. 

257 Shasta, a corruption of the French "chaste," was first applied to the moun- 
tain by early American travelers. — Bancroft, Hist, of Calif. VII :440. 



332 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

eleven small churches.^ss Two others are constituted and 
probably some four or five more will spring into existence 
the coming summer. In all these churches we number about 
160 members. Forty or fifty more may include all the mem- 
bers of the territory ; and these members oome to us from al- 
most every state in the union, and some from Australia. It 
would be almost a miracle, in bringing together such a com- 
munity, if all would at once co-operate, in ways and means to 
carry out the great objects of the gospel, with all the harmony 
of the spheres. Yet be it said to the praise of these brethren 
and to the honor of the gospel of Christ that, according 
to the means of grace they enjoy, they will not suffer in com- 
parison with most of the country churches in the States, both 
as it regards the order of the members or the willingness to 
support the gospel. Now when we remember that nine years 
ago the first of these brethren arrived in Oregon and from 
that time to the present they arrived in this valley poor, 
many without bed or bedding, save a few blankets, with 
their teams either lost in the mountains or reduced to skel- 
etons, and every necessary of life to provide anew, with 
clothing, groceries, cooking and farming utensils at a price 
fourfold that of the cost in the States, that in churches of 
from six to twenty-seven members no two families lived 
nearer than a mile of each other, and these interspersed with 
every variety of religionist found in the States, till it is not 
common for more than two Baptist churches to be found in 
a large county, is it reasonable to expect that everything will 
be done with the promptness and precision with which busi- 
ness is transacted in well organized churches in the midst 
of compact cities? 

And then your missionaries, unlike our missionaries in the 
foreign fields, have been compelled to divide their energies 
between the interests of the churches and the recurring ur- 



258 The minutes for June, 1851, show only nine churches: the West Union, 
Yamhill, Rickreal, Oregon City, Santiam, Lebanon, Shiloh, Molalla, and Clatsop 
Churches. The French Prairie and Marysville Churches were organized, but not 
admitted. — Minutes of Willamette Baptist Association for 1851. Mattoon, Bap. An. 
of Ore. 1:1-17. The author must have been mistaken, for the Association of 1852 
did not meet until the June after this letter was written. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 333 

gent wants of rising- families. During the last three years 
the extravagant prices of all the articles of family consump- 
tion, together with the rage for gold which pervaded almost 
the entire community, precluded all reasonable hope that the 
Missionary Society and the scattered churches would give 
the families of your missionaries a bare sustenance. With 
this state of things we are fully convinced that your Board 
have been disposed to exercise a laudable (I might perhaps 
say unwarrantable) forbearance. But this policy has been 
fruitful in evil conseq'uences. Our necessities have diverted 
our time and care to a lamentable extent from our appropri- 
ate work. While we have been fast wearing out our lives in 
hard labor directed to the best of our wisdom, we feel a la- 
mentable conviction that the feeble cause of Christ has been 
neglected and our Christian graces have been gradually de- 
clining. In the midst of these embarassing circumstances 
we have labored and under the blessing of God we have 
brought a school into existence. In the assumption of the 
necessary responsibilities, Brother Johnson has involved 
himself in pecuniary liabilities from which it is doubtful 
whether he will ever be able to recover. The school fur- 
nished me a living while at the same time it consumed all my 
available means and confines me for years to the place in or- 
der to secure a permanent site for a literary institution for 
the denomination in Oregon. But times and prospects have 
greatly changed in a few months. The prices of most of the 
ordinary articles of family consumption are materially re- 
duced. Still the labor of man and beast is high. Butter is 
still 75 cents a pound, so we use none of that article ; fresh 
beef from 8 to 12 cents per pound, pork from 14 to 18 and 
eggs 75 cents per dozen. The prospect of usefulness is also 
materially increased, especially in the country churches. Fee- 
ble and scattered as our churches are, I think they will pay 
from $50 to $150 this year for preaching, if they can secure 
it one Sabbath each month. These churches are all located in 
the midst of most important agricultural districts in the Wil- 
lamette Valley, some of them in the immediate vicinity of 



334 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

county seats, and must not be neglected. The population 
in all our towns is greatly reduced by means of that pecu- 
liar feature in the land bill which requires four years' actual 
residence on a claim to obtain a patent from government. 
Numbers of the remaining citizens are adventurers who have 
left their families in the States and intend to return to their 
families as soon as they shall have sheared the golden fleece. 
Others are uncertain whether their business will justify the 
removal of their families to our shores. These and other cir- 
cumstances too numerous to be named render the success- 
ful occupancy of our towns more than doubly difficult that of 
the towns in the Western states, technically so called. But 
with all these difficulties to encounter, Pedo-baptist churches, 
both Roman and Protestant, are sustaining their ministers in 
the most important of these towns by very little aid from 
the members in the place. Should we entirely neglect these 
towns, they will soon become very difficult of access to Bap- 
tists. Your missionaries are of opinion that a missionary 
should be stationed at Portland and principally supported by 
the Board at home, if a suitable man can be found. A small 
family at this place would require $600 a year to enable a man 
to devote himself to the work of the ministry, $100 of which is 
as much as could reasonably be expected from the people of 
the place, tmless favorable changes could be made. Portland, 
as I have informed you in a former letter, is the principal 
port in Oregon. The present population is estimated at 700 
souls. It contains 35 wholesale and retail stores, two tin shops, 
four public taverns, two steam sawmills, one steam flouring 
mill, with two run of stones, six or eight drinking shops and 
billiard tables, one wine and spirit manufactory, a variety of 
mechanic shops and from 8 to 15 merchant vessels are always 
seen lying at anchor in the river or at the wharves. The Meth- 
odists, Presbyterians and Romans have each built them neat 
places for public worship.^^^ The Episcopalians have service 

259 In 1852 there seems to have been only the following church buildings in 
Portland: Methodist, built in 1850; Catholic, 1851; Congregational, 1851. There 
was in addition a parish of the Episcopal Church, organized in 1851. A Presby- 
terian Church was not organized until 1854. The author evidently confuses the 
Presbyterians with the Congregationalists. — Hist of Portland, ed. by H. W. Scott, 
pp. 344-3S6. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 335 

two Sabbaths each month. The Methodist Church have a 
high school in progress and a neat edifice of wood, two 
stories, 60 by 40 feet. A few months ago we had ten Baptist 
members in this place ; now we can find but six. But about 
half of them can be regarded as permanent. This is the 
place where nearly all the immigrants by water land and 
from which they will go to their various points of destination. 
You will see then the importance of early planting a church 
in this place. 

What I have said of Portland in respect to support is true 
of Oregon City. Yet it will not do to abandon that post. 
Our school must be sustained and much of that must be done 
at the sacrifice of your missionaries. To human appearance 
the abandonment of this enterprise would be ruinous. To 
tax one man with the labor of the school and the care of the 
church and then require him to be put in competition with 
ministers of other denominations who are sustained in their 
own appropriate work seems much like double working a 
man and at the same time taking from him the use of his 
tools. In this condition a brother may greatly desire to 
show himself "approved unto God, a workman that needeth 
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth," but 
it is certain he cannot study much to do these things. After 
Brother Chandler's year closes, we shall be compelled to 
make some change in his labors so that he may either devote 
the most of his energies to the school or to the church. Br. 
Johnson's health is slowly improving. I hope he will be able 
to enter the field of labor by the first of April. The Molalla 
and West Union churches are waiting for his services and 
when they learn that he can serve them I have no doubt but 
they will make the requisite application and will probably 
raise for his support from $150 to $200. Beyond this, he 
wishes to itinerate and visit and preach to destitute churches 
and settlements, as Providence may direct, half the time. 
In view of the scattered condition of our numbers and the 
influence he would exert upon the churches and ministers, I 
think this will contribute more to organize and strengthen 



336 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

the churches than any course he could pursue. We feel 
that your Board, if possible, ought to increase his salary at 
least to $300. It has been thought advisable by all with 
whom I have consulted that I should devote my time to the 
business of an exploring agent according to the instructions 
contained in the late commission, if I can be sustained. But 
I think no reasonable man in Oregon would say this can be 
done for less than $500 per year. Something might be done 
by the churches and individuals, should the Lord give me 
favor with the people. Should your Board make me the 
appointment of exploring agent and leave it discretionary 
with your missionaries here whether I should attend one or 
two churches monthly, I think the object you contemplate 
will be accomplished and I can receive about $150 of the 
$500 from the churches and reach lall the important points in 
the territory except Puget Sound, and perhaps that. Through 
this arrangement Br. Johnson and myself would be able 
occasionally to spend a Sabbath together in a meeting, if 
Providence should indicate. I make this last suggestion 
partly to save your Board funds and partly from a conviction 
of its practical results on the cause in Oregon. In this event 
I would engage to labor one year, should you appoint me 
with a salary of $350 from your Board. 

Our school building is about $200 in debt, and we must 
have $300 or $400 more expended before it will be suitable 
to occupy. The latter sum can hardly be raised from the 
old subscriptions, although we have some $1200 on the sub- 
scription unpaid which was subscribed in good faith. But 
what in Oregon is called hard times renders most of it very 
doubtful. Somebody must do this work, that somebody 
must be one of your missionaries, and I know not but that 
missionary must be myself. Our Congregational friends are 
about to send one of their ministers to the States to raise 
funds to liquidate the debts of the female seminary in this 
place. 2'^*' We shall try to do this first work in Oregon if 
possible. I have no more available means to apply to this 



260 This was Rev. George H. Atkinson. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:680. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 337 

work, not enough to purchase a horse for the coming year's 
labors, yet I trust my friends will in some way provide me 
at least the use of an animal. As it respects the present 
appointment for three months, it will be impossible for me 
to devote my entire time to the agency. The next five or 
six weeks are among the most unfavorable in the year to 
travel, except as we do it by steam ; and then I have engage- 
ments twice each month which I cannot at once dispense 
with, if I can reach them. I have concluded to do what I 
can in the agency in connection with my other engagements 
and report accordingly. I shall not make a monthly report 
till next mail as this general communication is so extended. 
We trust with more than usual confidence that the coming 
season will be one of some ingathering into the churches. 
The future is with the Lord. The present becomes us to 
devote to him. Late indications at least appear rather flat- 
tering. May we be ena'bled to wait on the Lord in His 
appointed ways and His providential indications. As ever, 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received March 16, 1852. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., April 1, 1852. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Society. 
Dear Bro. : 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society for the fourth quarter 
appointment under the commission forwarded under date of 
ending the last day of March, 1852 (or for the three months' 
Nov. 29, 1850). The condition of our chvirches and my en- 
gagements rendered it necessary that I should supply three 
destitute churches up to this time. I have visited Portland 
at my regular appointments four times. Have visited the 
church in the French Prairie three times, the Lebanon 
church (Marion Co.) 12 miles east from Salem, three times ; 
the Shilo church, 12 miles south of Salem on the north fork 



338 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

of the Santiam once, Albany church at Albany (county seat 
of Linn) once ; and the La Creole church, Polk Co., 8 miles S. 
W. of Salem (members dispersed through the county). Have 
labored 13 weeks, travelled 655 miles, paid $2.25 travelling 
expenses. Received $30 for my support, preached 42 ser- 
mons, visited religiously 56 families and individuals. My 
visit to the La Creole was to meet a public meeting called for 
the purpose of taking into consideration ways and means 
of meeting the destitution of the feeble churches and new 
portions of the territory, if practicable. But four ministers 
were present, one of whom is on the eve of leaving for the 
States. But four churches were represented and incipient 
measures were taken to supply them. It was thought desir- 
able that I should attend two of those churches, each one 
Sabbath in two months, and that Br. V. Snelling attend them 
the alternate Sabbath one each two months. As soon as I 
shall have visited them I shall report their state and what 
they will do for the support, if that can be learned. It is 
slow bringing churches into an organized state for efficient 
action, but we will labor toward that as fast as we can. 

The meeting was conducted with great unanimity of senti- 
ment land, although the weather was very unfavorable, trav- 
eling bad and the waters high, the congregations were large 
for the place and, after preaching, five were received for bap- 
tism and four followed the footsteps of their Redeemer 
through the liquid grave, one the teacher of the school in 
the place. The deferred member will be baptized next Sab- 
bath. He also is one of the leading men in the county. This 
church has received four or five others by baptism the past 
winter under the labors of Rev. R. C. Hill from Missouri. 

Yours in the gospel. 
Received May 17, 1852. EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Apr. 1, 1852. 
To the Executive Board of the 

Am. Bapt. Home Mission Society: 
The subscriber desires reappointment as a missionary of the 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 339 

American Baptist Home Mission Society, for the term of one 
year from this date, to labor one-quarter of the time with the 
Baptist church at Lebanon, Marion County, one-quarter of 
the time with the Shilo church, Marion County, and the 
Marysville26i church, Benton County, and to spend the re- 
maining time as an itinerant preacher, in which time it is 
proposed by the friends in Oregon that I shall visit the Ump- 
qua Valley and other portions in Oregon as often as circum- 
stances may seem to demand. The Lebanon^^s church is in 
an important farming country 12 miles east of Salem ; church 
numbers but 8 members. Average attendance on Lord's day 
about 50. The missionary Baptists have no church within 12 
miles of the place. The church agree to pay for my support 
$50 and hope to raise it to $100. The Shilo church has 10 
members ; congregation the Sabbath I preached to them 
about 55. The position is important, both for farming and 
for manufacturing purposes. I cannot tell what they will do 
until after the next church meeting. Probably about $50 for 
one eighth of the time. I have not visited Marysville 
church. It is just constituted by the labors of Elder R. C. 
Hill and consists of about 16 members. The Lord has vis- 
ited that region with a pleasing revival the past winter and 
Elder Hill, in behalf of that church, solicits my labors part 
of the time, with the assurance that they will aid in my sup- 
port. The point is at the head of navigation and the seat of 
justice for Benton County,263 and probably it will become 
the most important place above Salem, if not above Oregon 
City. Providence has signally opened the door to the Bap- 
tists in this place and it seems to me that it should be oc- 
cupied immediately. I will append the concurrent certifi- 
cate. 

EZRA FISHER. 



261 This was the present Corvallis. The name was changed in 1854. The 
church was organized in December, 1851. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:10. 

263 The Lebanon Church was organized May 17, 1851. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of 
Ore. 1:16. 

263 Benton County was organized in 1847, and was named after Thomas H. 
Benton, of Missouri. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:706. 



340 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

The Lebanon Baptist church concur in all the terms of 
the foregoing application. By order of the church. 

JOHN HUNT, 
Church Clerk. 
This is to certify that I approve of the above application. • 

GEO. C. CHANDLER. 

N. B. — Elder Johnson is absent, but he assured me he 
would recommend this course of labor to me. 

N. B. — I cannot visit Marysville church till the first Sab. 
in May. I have asked for an appointment of the above kind 
from the conviction of all with whom I have conversed that 
the churches already gathered should be attended at least 
once a month, in preference to exploring ground, no more 
important, which we cannot occupy. Should you be disposed 
to appoint me exploring agent, with the above named lib- 
erty, I will serve you under that name and in that capacity 
as far as practicable. As to the salary, your wisdom will de- 
cide what is necessary when I say that common laborers 
cannot be hired short of from $2 to $3 per day and mechan- 
ics from $5 to $6. All articles of living are from 50 to 100 
per cent above your city prices. 

Respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received May 17, 1852. 



Oregon City, Ore. Ter., May 25, 1852. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br.: 

A desire to be able to communicate the state of the Bap- 
tist cause in Benton county when I next wrote you and my 
being unable to visit that county till the first Sabbath in 
this month forms my excuse for not forwarding the concur- 
rent certificate of the Shilo church in Marion Co. to the ap- 
plication which I made in the month of Mar. for a reappoint- 
ment as your missionary in Oregon. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 341 

At the regular church meeting the Shilo church invited 
Elder Ezra Fisher to take charge of the church and agreed 
to raise one hundred dollars for his services one fourth of 
the time ; also resolved to ask the Board of the Am. Baptist 
Home Missionary Society to appoint Elder Ezra Fisher as a 
missionary in the bounds of this church and to itinerate in 
the territory so as to promote the interests of the destitute 
churches and villages. The church heard the statements of 
Elder Fisher relating to the application which he had made 
for reappointment as a missionary in Oregon and concur in 
all the terms of the application as stated by him. Post Of- 
fice address is Salem, Marion Co., O. T. 

Shilo Church, Apr. 3d, 1852. 

AARON CORNELIUS, 

Church Clerk. 

N. B. — By means of my being called away from the church 
before the clerk could attend to this application, Br. Corne- 
lius requested me to make the statement of the facts and 
use his name in reference to this matter. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 

Now as I have a little spare paper I wish to state a few 
facts. I visited the Marysville church, Benton Co., eighty 
miles above Oregon City by land and 160 by water, Satur- 
day and Sabbath, the first and second days in Mzy. Preach- 
ed both days and visited four days in their bounds. The 
weather was unusually rainy, having been preceded by heavy 
rains for ten days so that all the streams were high, and 
most of the members living at a distance could not attend. 
The church had no meeting for business ; on Saturday I 
preached to eight persons ; Sabbath to about sixty-five. The 
facts touching the history of this church are interesting. 
Brother Hill from Missouri, having sustained himself by 
teaching and practicing medicine in Albany, about 15 miles 
below, on the east side of the river, while he preached on 
Sabbaths, was invited by a brother to visit and preach to the 



342 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

people in Marysville on Sabbath. Br. Hill complied with the 
request and discovered such indications of Divine favor as 
induced him to repeat his appointments, till he soon found 
that Providence manifestly called him to visit from house 
to house through the day and to preach each evening in some 
of the sparse settlements. He continued his labors about 
two months, during which time he baptized fourteen coil- 
verts, numbers of old professors were revived and a church 
was constituted in Marysville, the county seat of Benton 
County, one of the most commanding points on the Wil- 
lamette River. The church has since increased till it now 
numbers 30 members ; others will unite by baptism and pro- 
fession during the summer. The church have voted to build 
a neat house of worship, 30 feet by 40, paint the outside and 
finish the inside, and have contracted the work at $2500, to 
be finished next Sept. By these providential interpositions 
the interests of the Baptist denomination in the county are 
more promising than those of any other sect. Marysville is 
the head of steamboat navigation at present and must be- 
come one of the best points on the river for trade, with a 
surrounding country unrivalled in point of fertility of soil 
and beauty of scenery. At the solicitude of some of the 
members and friends I consented to spend the fifth Sabbath 
in this month with them. The church will make arrange- 
ments during the month of June to supply themselves once 
or twice each month. Should they invite me to preach 
monthly with them, I shall regard it my duty to comply 
with the request till they can get a man to devote his entire 
labors in Benton County. 

Marysville is about two years old, contains about eight 
or ten families, five dry goods stores and about twenty frame 
buildings. A brisk trade is carried on between the place and 
the gold mines.264. The church paid Br. Hill something more 
than $200 for his services and I think would raise some $200 



264 Corvallis was about three miles east of the Hudson Bay Company's trail 
to California. — G. H. Himes. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 343 

to $400 salary for a suitable minister to preach all the time in 
the county. 

You will hear more from this place in two or three 
months. My time is all taken up in travelling and preach- 
ing and performing the duties of a minister in Oregon. My 
lungs have been troublesome through the winter and are not 
entirely healed. Br. Johnson is still unable to preach. 

Yours truly, 
Received July 17, 1852. EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — I received the bills of lading for the goods shipped 
on the M. Howes Jan. 13 and 20. 



Oregon City, O. T.. July 28, 1852. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, N. York. 
Dear Brother: 

Yours under date June 3rd came to hand by the last mail. 
You will learn before the receipt of this that I am making ar- 
rangements to devote all my time to the agency. Br. Read 
is now disengaged from the school and I hope soon to see 
him situated where he can take care of one or more churches. 
I hope he will meet the wishes of the brethren at Marysville. 
I look upon this place as the most surely available point 
of importance for the Baptists above Oregon City. I gave 
you a brief description of the place and its position in point 
of trade. Although it is difficult at this period in the history 
of our country to decide with certainty what may be the de- 
velopments of a country rich with agricultural resources on 
one hand, while on the other new and rich discoveries of gold 
mines are being made almost monthly, yet such are its rela- 
tions to the whole of these resources that it seems hardly pos- 
sible that it should fail of becoming the first town of import- 
ance in the Willamette Valley. I spent the Sabbath with this 
young church on the 11th of this month, at which time three 
valuable members were received by letter and one related 
her experience and was received as a candidate for baptism. 



344 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

On the second Sabbath in next month on my way to Ump- 
qua and Rogue rivers I shall probably baptize two and re- 
ceive one more by experience. On the third Sabbath of this 
month and the two preceding days I attended the yearly 
meeting of the Lebanon church. This was a scene mingled 
with joy and grief. Here I found a young married lady, 
whom the church had expected soon to receive by baptism, 
lying at the point of death and she expired on Saturday, en- 
joying a comfortable hope of a blissful immortality beyond 
the grave. On Sabbath I baptized one young man into the 
fellowship of the church who found the Saviour precious 
last month. One young brother was received by letter. In 
the afternoon the church for the first time received the ordi- 
nance of the Lord's Supper. Elder Sperry,265 our itiner- 
ant, was with me through the meetings. This church is 
small, as you will see by referring to the minutes, and in the 
country, but its position is good, being twelve miles east 
from Salem, the present seat of government, and in the 
heart of an extensively rich farming country. The commu- 
nity are mostly farmers. The members are intelligent and in- 
fluential. This church have sustained a Sunday school the 
last year and will probably soon resume it. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 

The Oregon City church at the regular meeting on the 3d of 
July invited Rev. George C. Chandler to continue to labor with 
them another year ; resolved that they would raise $100 to- 
ward his support and appointed a committee to confer with 
Br. Chandler, learn the sum necessary to support his fami- 
ly and, should Br. Chandler comply with the request, make 
application to the Home Missionary Society for aid suffic- 
ient to enable him to devote himself exclusively to the min- 
istry. . . . 



265 This was Rev. William Sperry (1811-1857). He was born in Kentucky, 
moved to Ohio and to Iowa and came to Oregon in 1851. He was at this time the 
missionary of the Willamette Association (Baptist). In 1854 he was pastor of the 
Pleasant Butte Church in Lane County. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:86, 19. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 345 

The church committee were informed that a committee 
appointed by the Methodist church to inquire into the nec- 
essary expenses of their minister stationed at Oregon City, 
with a family of the minster, his wife and one little child, a. 
babe, exclusive of the parsonage, which would probably rent 
for $300 or $400, reported to the church $850 

To the Executive Board of the Am. Bap. Home Missionary 
Society: The church at Oregon City desires the reappoint- 
ment of Elder George C. Chandler as a missionary of the 
American Baptist Home Missionary Society to labor all the 
time within its bounds for twelve months from the first day 
of Sept. 1852, at a salary of $1250, one hundred dollars of 
which the church pledges herself she will pay : By order of 
the church, George P. Newell, Lyman D. C. Latourette,^^^ 
Ezra Fisher, Committee of the Church. 
Received Sept. 13, 1852. 



Oregon City, July 28, '52. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

Will you do me the favor to order me a copy of the New 
York Recorder to Mr. John Robinson to Marysville postoffice, 
Benton Co., O. T., and pay for the same and charge the same 
to my account? 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — I shall write you no more until after my return 
from Umpqua and Rogue River valleys. The distance is 
about 350 miles out, and my return the same, which will re- 
quire about six weeks to perform and reach all the points I 
wish. I leave home tomorrow morning. We greatly need 
the prayers of God's people in Oregon that Heaven's richest 
blessings may rest upon us in laying the foundation for ef- 



266 For G. P. Newell, see note 240. 

L. D. C. Latourette (1825-1886), was born in New York, came to Oregon in 
1848, and after a short stay in the California mines in 1849, returned to Oregon 
City. In and near this town he spent the remainder of his life. His first wife, Lucy 
Jane Gray, was the eldest daughter of the author. She died in 1864, and Mr. Lat- 
ourette later married her younger sister, Ann Eliza. 



346 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ficieiit Christian enterprise for after ages. I have collected 
over $1000 since last fall for our school building. The work 
has advanced so far that the school is now in it : but we 
must immediately look for other teachers, or rather teacher. 
It seems to me desirable that we should have an efficient 
young man qualified to teach an academy in N. Y. who 
wishes to make teaching a profession and could at the same 
time exert an influence in the Baptist cause. We have had 
no meeting of the Board for eight weeks and they are now 
scattered so that it has been impracticable to call a meeting 
since my return last week. I feel safe however in request- 
ing you to find such a man. The school will number about 
30 next year, perhaps more. We need very much the port- 
able maps, on rollers, of the world, the United States, North 
America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and a map of 
the Ancient Roman Empire and one of Palestine. Could 
not some friends secure them for us so that you could send 
them out next winter? 

Yours in the bonds of the gospel, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Sep. 13, 1852. 



Oregon City, O. T., Sept. 6, 1852. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. Bap. H. M. Soc, N. Y. 
Dear Brother: 

Having just returned from a tour of the Umpqua I hasten 
to give you a brief account of my tour. Leaving home on 
the 29th of Aug., I took a small steamer267 for Champoeg,^^^ 
a small village of some eight or ten houses, principally log 
built in French style, with two small stores. This town is 
situated on the east bank of the Willamette near the north 



267 The first steamship traffic on the lower Willamette was in 1850, and from 
the summer of 1851 steamers became numerous. In 1852 a number were running 
on tiie upper river. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. II :256. 

268 ChamjioeK was the oldest settlement in French Prairie, which was. in turn, 
the oldest settlement in the Willamette Valley. The derivation of the word is not 
certain, but is possibly "Sandy Encampment." — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:72. F. V. 
Holman, Hist, of the Counties of Ore. in Ore Hist. Soc. Quar. XI:21. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 347 

extremity of French Prairie, 30 miles from Oregon City by 
water. I landed at 1 P. M. Being without a horse, I walked 
18 miles. My way lay through the French Prairie in a 
south and southeast course, skirted first on the right and 
then on the left by beautiful glades of fir and branched oak, 
while the prairie is studded with fields of wheat standing in 
the shock, indicating a generous return to the labors of the 
husbandman. Spent the night with Br. Smith and was 
happy to learn from him that the church at French Prairie 
had secured the labors of Rev. John Rexford^^^ one Sabbath 
each month. From this church my way lay through the up- 
per end oT French Prairie six miles south across what is 
falsely called Lake La Bish,27o a tract of rich marsh land 
about 200 or 300 yards in width and some 3 or 4 miles in 
length, forming the summit level between the Willamette 
and Pudding rivers, thence six miles through timber and 
prairie to Salem, the present capital of our Territory .^^i 
Found three or four Baptist members near this place, but 
hastened to the place of my appointment twelve miles up 
Mill creek through one of the most delightful prairies and 
surrounded by one of the most picturesque sceneries in 
North America, if not in the world. In this valley, about 
two and a half miles from the north fork of the Santiam 
and six miles east from the Willamette, is a log school house, 
about 20 by 22 feet, where the Shilo church meet to worship 
the God of Heaven. Here I spent the Saturday and Sab- 
bath and preached each day, on Sa'bbath to a full house. The 
church consists of 12 members and pays $100 for the preach- 
ed word one Sab. each month. Their position is good. The 
members of the church, although a few, are among the most 
substantial citizens and sustain a Sabbath school, yet are 
surrounded by Methodists, Campbellites, Anti-missionary 



269 Rev. John Re.xford was born in Canada, came from Illinois to Oregon in 
1851, and died in Detroit, Mich., in 1880. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:16. 

270 Lake La Bische has since been drained. 

271 The capital was ordered transferred to Salem in 1851 and has remained 
there until the present time with the exception of a few months in 1855, when it 
was at Corvallis. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:146, 147. See also W. C. Winslow, 
Contest Over the Capital of Oregon, in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. VIII :173-178. 



348 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Baptists and unbelievers. A good minister would find this 
one of the most important country locations in any new 
country. On the twelfth I passed through the fork of the 
Santiam, a fine prairie country, eighteen miles, stopping and 
preaching at three P. M. Spent three days with the Santiam 
church visiting, and preached once. This is a small and af- 
flicted church on the south side of the south fork of the 
Santiam, under the pastoral care of Rev. Richmond Cheadle, 
and situated in a rich, level, prairie country near the only 
soda springs in the Willamette Valley, which are acquiring 
some celebrity for their medicinal properties. This church 
is thirty miles south of Salem and 15 east of Albany, Lynn 
County seat. 

Sept. 12, at Lebanon, Marion County. Passing through 
an open prairie country, 24 miles, I came to Marysville, the 
county seat of Benton County, standing on the west bank of 
the Willamette River 70 miles by land above this place. 
Preached on the 17th and 18th, baptized two candidates and 
received one more for baptism. The house, 30 by 40 feet,, 
is nearly completed. Here a minister is more immediately 
needed than in any other point in the territory — a ready, 
business-like, devoted preacher, who could give direction and 
exercise a general supervision in bringing into existence and 
sustaining an academical school for the denomination. Such 
a man would receive $200 or $250 from the church the first 
year. The church is young and inexperienced, but is by far 
the most wealthy church in the territory. From Marysville 
I followed up the valley of the most western fork of the Wil- 
lamette 70 miles through a level prairie country studded 
with small groves of ash and soft maple, while the hills were 
crowned with oak groves, but on the Willamette bottoms the 
balm of Gilead, white fir and soft maple constitute the prin- 
cipal growth of timber. Crossing the Calapooia Mountains, 
a distance of 8 miles by good wagon road, one enters what 
is called the Umpqua Valley,272 which consists of a series of 



272 For the early history of the Umpqua Valley, see note 246. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 349 

narrow valleys varying from a few yards to three or four 
miles in width. In the midst of these valleys and on every 
hand rise hills varying in form and elevation from the gentle 
sloping mound fifty feet in elevation to low mountains rais- 
ing their imposing summits 2000 or 3000 feet above the level 
of the valleys below, whose sloping sides are covered with a 
luxuriant growth of the most nutritious grasses, everywhere 
interspersed with open groves of red and white oak. Fenc- 
ing and building timber is rather scarce till you approach 
tlie Coast, Cascade and transverse ranges of mountains. 
Springs of pure water are abundant near the base of these 
hill slopes. After crossing the Calapooia Mountains, I trav- 
eled about 50 miles through these valleys on the great road 
from the Willamette Valley to the gold mines.^^^ This road 
has already become a great thoroughfare where loaded wag- 
ons, pack trains of mules and horses and droves of beef cattle 
■are daily passing. These valleys are fast filling up with set- 
tlers and it is confidently believed that the largest portion 
of the arable land will be taken up before the first of next 
January. The population of the Umpqua Valley may now 
be estimated at 1500 or 2000 souls, among which I found six 
Baptist members. On the 25th I preached at Winchester,^^^ 
the only village in the main valley, to about 60 attentive 
hearers. Winchester is situated about the center of the val- 
ley, or rather assemblage of valleys, on the south bank of 
the north fork of the Umpqua on the great road. It contains 
four families and one store, a saw and grist mill and two or 
three mechanic shops. The seat of justice for the county will 
probably be located about six miles south of this on the south 
fork. The valley contains nearly two counties, and, as yet, not 
a single preacher of any denomination. This district of coun- 
try lies contiguous to the gold mines, is extremely rich in agri- 
cultural resources, and of water power there is no end. Great 

273 This road followed in most places the old Hudson Bay Company's trail to 
California. — G. H. Himes. 

274 Winchester was laid out in 1850. It was on a trail to the coast and to the 
mines. The county seat of Douglas County was there until 1853, when it was trans- 
ferred to Roseburg, as the author prophesies. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:183,711. 



350 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

anxiety was expressed by the citizens of every description for 
the settlement of ministers and school teachers among them. 
It is about two years since the first white family settled in the 
valley and probably not more than five or six evangelical ser- 
mons have been preached in that whole district. Mr, Jesse Ap- 
plegate,^''^ the leading man in the valley, assured me, if the 
Baptists would locate a school in his neighborhood with a 
view of raising it to an academical school, he would donate 40 
acres of choice land and he and his brother^^s would each 
give $1000 toward erecting a suitable building and he thought 
another brother would give $1000 for the same object. In 
the absence of a common school system, and in view of the re- 
ligious and literary destitution of that country and the pros- 
pects of its rapid development both in population and re- 
sources and in view of the untiring efforts of other religous 
sects, upon consultation with our brethren here, we have 
thought it best for Br. Read to proceed immediately to the 
Umpqua and commence preaching to the destitute, and at 
the same time look after the interests of education and at- 
tempt, if practicable, to lay the foundation for a Baptist acad- 
emy in as favor'ed a location as can be secured, as his labors 
have closed with the Oregon City College. 

I did not visit Scottsburg,^^^ the commercial point for the 
Umpqua, but learned that it consists of six dry goods stores, 
is near the head of tide water on the Umpqua, some four or 
five families residing in the vicinity, and that the entire com- 
munity consists of about 70 or 75 souls. Fifteen vessels have 



275 Jesse Applegate was a well-known figure in early Oregon history. lie was a 
leader in the immigration of 1843. He was a prominent member of the provisional 
legislature in 1845 and 1849. In 1846 he helped open a southern route to the Will- 
amette Valley. In 1849 he settled near Yoncalla, in the Umpqua Valley. He was 
Indian agent in 1870, candidate for U. S. Senator in 1876, and died in 1888. — Ban- 
croft, Hist, of Ore. 1:393, 473, 544, 568; 11:178, 564, 673, 763. 

276 Charles Applegate came to Oregon in 1843 and settled in the Umpqua Valley 
in 1849 near his brother. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:393, 569. 

The other brother was Lindsey, who also came to Oregon in 1843 and who had 
settled where Ashland now stands. — Ibid. I :569, 393. 

277 Scottsburg was at the head of tidewater on the Umpqua and was named 
after Levi Scott. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:178. 

It was the point from which settlers in Southern Oregon got many of their 
supplies. There had been a Hudson Bay Company's post there, and mule trails to 
the interior of Oregon. — Mrs. S. A. Long, Mrs. Jesse Applegate, in Ore. Hist. Soc. 
Quar. VIII :182. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 351 

entered the mouth of the river within the last 15 months. 
Next month I expect to visit Rogue River. On my return 
I visited the church just constituted in the forks of the Wil- 
lamette^^s and spent the Sabbath. At present I shall defer 
giving you a description of this church, except to mention 
that our itinerant, Rev. Mr. Sperry, preaches to them month- 
ly and they are sustaining a Sunday school. Circumstances 
over which I have no control prevented my proceeding to 
Rogue River as I intended when I left home, but, by Divine 
permission, I shall visit that part of the country next month. 
Indications seem very favorable that an immediate and ur- 
gent demand will be made for the appointment of an effic- 
ient, enterprising, devoted missionary to labor a^ the Indian 
Agency, where we have two valuable Baptist families, and 
Jacksonville, the trading town for the rich mining district 
now attracting many miners on the Rogue River, and but 
seven miles from the Agency. I trust you will be casting 
about you with prayerful anxiety to find the very man to 
meet vice in all its forms and succeed in that place. . . . 

Numbers of appointments must be made, which will re- 
quire from $300 to $400 each from your Board, or the cause 
must be given over into other hands for the want of effic- 
ient ministers. The Old School Presbyterian Church has three 
missionaries here, with but one church, very small.^^^ Con- 
gregationalists have seven or eight ministers, the Methodists 
about a score, Seceders four to five, Cumberland Presbyter- 
ians four or five, Campbellites six or seven and Anti-mis- 
sionary Baptists six or eight. It strikes me that four mis- 
sionaries should be immediately apponted for Oregon who 
should be subject to the advice of the ministers here in the 
selection of their location. Marysville, Salem and Portland 
are all suffering for want of efficient Baptist ministers, yet 



278 This church was organized May 1, 1852, by Revs. Vincent Snelling and 
William Sperry. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:19. 

279 The three old-school Presbyterian missionaries were Revs. Lewis Thompson, 
Robert Robe and E. R. Geary. J. A. Hanna had also probably arrived by this time. 
The church was probably the one at Corvallis. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:680, 681. 

Among the Congregational ministers were Revs. Harvev Clark, Geo. H. Atkin- 
son, Myron Eells, Horace Lyman and Elkanah Walker. — Ibid. 11:679; 1:137. 



352 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

the distance is so far from New York and the time is so 
long before you can secure the labors of the right man that 
we are obliged to throw such laborers into the field as we 
have and, by the time of the arrival of a man just adapted for 
the field, we have a man in the way who cannot be removed 
without temporary injury to the cause. 

Our school at Oregon City is doing well as yet. Br. Chan- 
dler's labors close in about two weeks and we have found no 
teacher to succeed him. We expect we shall be compelled 
to take up a temporary teacher. The Trustees, at a late 
meeting, instructed me to correspond with you and request 
you to secure for us a teacher, if possible, from one of the 
New England or New York colleges, who wishes to identify 
himself with a rising institution and grow up with it, with 
hopes of permanency in the professon of teaching. We think 
the school will give such a man a reasonable support. He 
should by all means bring along with him an amiable, in- 
telligent wife. 

The goods that were shipped on the M. Howes arrived safe 
and in good order except a few pairs of ladies' shoes and 
gaiters ; the numbers of pairs I cannot now state, as I am 
from home and have not the invoice of goods along, but will 
state particulars in my next. 

The importance of our mission to Oregon is every day be- 
coming more manifest and we daily need more grace and 
wisdom and energy to meet the openings of providence in 
laying broad and deep the foundations of institutions for en- 
larged Christian philanthropy. As a denomination we are 
suffering for the want of an efficient colporteur of the Amer- 
ican Baptist Publication Society. A colporteur who could 
be kept constantly supplied with books to meet the demands 
of the people, and so sustained that he could go everywhere 
carrying and selling his books and preaching the Word, 
would, by harmonizing discordant elements and scattering 
broadcast the seed of evangelical truth in a luxuriant soil, ac- 
complish a work for Oregon which no other man can do. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 353 

When I think on this subject all my bones are pained. We 
are now out of books and the Society's agent^^o is at home 
providing for his family, teaching school for a support, 
while every Methodist circuit rider is selling books of the 
Arminian stamp through the country and the Campbellites 
have their books on the way to proselyte to their faith. It 
strikes me that a colporteur missionary must be sustained 
by the Publication Soc. and that the results will soon justify 
the outlay. Pray for us that our faith and labors fail not. 

Respectfully, 
EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. T., Sept. 22, '52. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, N. York. 
Dear Br.: 

I learn by a letter which Br. Chandler has just received 
from you that you are in correspondence with a brother who 
is willing to come to Oregorj as a professional teacher, and 
who is a licentiate.2^^ If he can preach, and your Board 
cannot send him as a teacher, could you not give him an ap- 
pointment as you did Brs. Chandler and Read? If so, and 
he can preach to the edification of the people, we can find 
profitable use for him as a teacher and preacher in this place 
and vicinity. This would operate to liberate the pastor here 
and enable him to exert a more general personal influence in 
the surrounding villages and the churches in the Willamette 
Valley. We feel that we must have an efficient, professional 
teacher, and we must look to you for the man. . . . 

Please send the Home Mission Record to the following 
brethren : William S. Wilmot,282 eight copies, Salem Post- 



280 This was Rev. Richmond Cheadle. 

281 This was probably J. D. Post, who came to Oregon in 1852. — Mattoon, Bap. 
An. of Ore. 1:37. 

282 Rev. William S. Wilmot, M. D., was born in Kentucky in 1808, moved to 
Missouri in 1841, and to Oregon in 1850. He settled in Marion County and was 
connected with the Shiloh Church for about twenty years. He was ordained in 
1859, and later lived in Washington and Idaho. He died at Beaverton, Ore. — Mat- 
toon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:71. 



354 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ofitice, Russel T. Hill, eight copies, Santiam Post-office, and 
John Trapp, eight copies, Marysville Post-office, and charge 
the same to my account. I have received pay. Will you 
order to Talbert Carter,283 Albany Post-office, one copy of the 
New York Recorder, and pay for the same and charge me 
with the amount. I wish not to be responsible for any paper 
I order more than a year at a time. Should they not order 
them renewed, you will have them discontinued at the end 
of the year. 

The ladies' shoes and gaiters not received in the bill of 
goods referred to in another sheet are one pair women's 
Brogans, 90 cents; two pairs morocco, marked $1.00 each; 
one pair calf marked 70 cents; one pair kid marked $1.00; 
and one pair colored gaiters $1.38. Total $5.98. I presume 
they were overlooked and not put up. It is possible the 
box might have been opened on the way, but not probable. 
During my absence the past three weeks, my family have 
been occupied with the family of Rev. Mr. Stevens^^^ from 
northern Ohio. His wife and three of the children have had 
a severe attack of the camp fever. The affliction was deep- 
ened by the death of his eldest daughter of seventeen years. 
Br. Stevens goes to Marysville. I hope he will succeed 
there. His family left my house this morning in an en- 
feebled state. The immigrants are every day reaching our 
valley in large numbers. The number of immigrants for 
Oregon are variously estimated from five to twenty thcu- 
sand souls.285 There has been an unusual amount of suffer- 
ing on the way by cholera, in a mitigated form, and camp 
fever. Those who come by the overland route should in- 
variably start early, take the most wholesome kinds of food, 
drive regularly and make no forced marches, except in the 



283 Tolbert Carter (1825-1899) was born in Illinois, moved to Missouri in 1841, 
and to Oregon in 1846. He settled in Benton County and served several terms in 
the state legislature. He was prominent in church life as a licensed preacher and 
deacon.- — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:57. 

284 Rev. Thomas Stephens (1803-1888) was born in Wales, where he was or- 
dained, lived later in New York and Ohio, and came to Oregon in 1852. He preached 
for the Shiloh and Corvallis churches for a time and later settled near Roseburg. — 
Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:14. See also the letter of Aug. 22, 1853. 

285 See note 154. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 355 

absence of grass or water, and rest Sabbaths, except where 
water and grass is not to be found. I write this that fol- 
lowing immigrations may profit by the advice. No doubt 
many on the route have lost their lives through neglect 
either in providing a suitable outfit, or through too much 
haste and irregular habits on the way. It should be pro- 
claimed through the length and breadth of the States that 
food made up principally of rancid bacon-sides, shoulders 
and hams, hot biscuits mixed with the fats fried therefrom 
and water, hot coffee, as strong as it can be made, mornings, 
noon and night, with no vegetables and little dried fruit 
for four or five months in succession, is enough to generate 
fatal diseases in any climate, but especially where all, both 
male and female, are exposed to extreme fatigue and con- 
stant anxiety of mind. I shall leave in aibout two weeks for 
the Rogue River, if the rains do not become too severe. In 
the meantime I shall attend a yearly meeting in Polk Co. 
with the LaCreole church. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Sept. 30, 1852. 



Oregon City, O. T., Oct. 16, 1852. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

Herein I send you a bill of goods which I wish you to 
purchase for me and forward as soon as you can ship direct 
to Portland, Oregon, as follows : 

1 large cooking stove, furniture and ten pieces of pipe. 
Let the pipe be bent for locking and be left open so that it 
can be packed close ; it can be put together here. 1 good 
patent lever watch, full jeweled, chain and key. I want a- 
gdod time keeper. 1 small timepiece. Let it not cost more 
than $10 or $12. 1 good hat for riding, rather wide-brim- 
med, 231/2 inches around the outside of the hat at the head. 
1 travelling overcoat, suitable for my business in a wet 



356 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Oregon winter, thick and firm, not coarse. 1 pair stout 
cassimere pantaloons, lined throughout. 1 stout cassimere 
frock coat; coats rather large for you will fit me. 1 good 
double-breasted cassimere vest for winter travelling. 1 sub- 
stantial black summer vest. One vest for a young man, mid- 
dling size. 25 or 30 yds. of woolen plaid ; if not in the market, 
linsey, green and black or green and red. One web of 
bleached sheeting, fine and firm. 2 bolts of unbleached cot- 
ton sheeting, not coarse. 1 bolt good, dark calico. 25 yds. 
of worsted delaine, figured, not light colored ; if no worsted 
delaine in market, get the amount in worsted goods for 
women's dresses. 8 yards of white muslin for young ladies' 
dresses. 1 bolt of good gingham, not very light colored. 

1 parasol, suitable for a young lady, not very light. 
16 yards cambric for lining. 6 yards brown holland. 

2 good brown linen tablecloths, 6 feet square. 
10 yards good brown linen toweling, all linen. 
Half-pound black Italian sewing silk, good. 

18 yards good, fine twilled red flannel. 6 papers of pins, 
dififerent sizes. 

1 pound black linen thread. 

6 cards good hooks and eyes. 12 fine ivory combs, large. 
6 tucking combs. 1 roll of black ribbon, ly^ inches wide. 1 
box adamantine candles. 1 good glass lantern. Fourth gross 
matches. 1 barrel New Orleans sugar, good. 200 letter en- 
velopes. Half-ream letter paper, best article. 

One dozen cut glass tumblers. 2 ladies' bonnets, one of 
which is for a girl of 11 years, each trimmed. 2 copies 
Downing's work on Horticulture's^ 1 copy Preacher's Man- 
ual by Rev. S. T. Sturtevant.287 1 copy of Williams' Miscel- 
laneous.288 1 pair fine calf boots, number lO's. 1 do. No. 
ll's, high in the instep. 1 pair water-proof calf boots, dou- 
ble sole and feet, lined with good calf, not very heavy. 1 



286 Andrew Jackson Downing's "Fruit and Fruit Trees of America" was first 
published in 184S, and passed through many editions. 

287 S. F. Sturtevant, Preacher's Manual, published by John C. Riker, New 
York, 8vo., $2.50. O. A. Roorbach, Bibliotheca Americana, p. 525. 

288 William R. Williams, Miscellanies. New York, 1850. See also note 237. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 357 

pair calf shoes, fine, No. 9. 1 do. No. 10, good article. 2 
pair little boys' calfskin shoes. No. 9. 1 pair ladies' gaiters, 
drab or slate colored. No. 4's. 1 do. black, No. 41/2. 2 pairs 
morocco boots. No. 4i/2- 2 do., one morocco and one enameled. 
No. 4. 1 pair ladies' calfskin boots, No. 4. 1 pair misses' 
enameled boots, No. 12. 1 pair morocco do. No. 12. 1 pair 
calfskin do. No. 12. 2 pair ladies' India rubber boots, Nos. 
6 and 7, rough bottoms. 10 pairs good, long-legged men's 
half hose. 6 pairs lamb's wool ladies' hose. 2 pairs colored 
cotton do. and 2 pairs white cotton do. 3 pairs boys' half 
hose, boy 6 yrs. old. 2 bandana silk handkerchiefs. 2 ladies' 
dress collars. 1 pair large ladies' silk gloves, drab or snuff 
color. 2 dozen nutmegs, 1 pound cinnamon, be sure it is 
good; 1 g'lass jar, about 1 gallon; 8 lbs. salsoda; 6 pounds 
saleratus, 1 good razor, 2 washing tubs, one to fit inside 
other; 1 waiter for tea table, medium size; 1 flatiron, large; 
3 good cotton umbrellas; 1 good steel blade shovel, round 
pointed; 12 sheets perforated cardboard for ladies' marking, 
white, pink, blue, green. Worsted for working different col- 
ors. 15 skeins silk of different colors for marking. 1 pair 
saddle bags for riding, rather large size; 1 large travelling 
trunk; pack it full before boxing it. 65 pounds of nails, 15 
lbs. 4's, 25 lbs. 6's, 15 lbs. 8's and 10 lbs. of 10 pennys. 1 
good walking cane, good length. 1 good ladies' winter 
shawl. 1 silk scarf for young lady, changeable blue and pink 
or blue and white. 1 pair good spectacles set in silver for a 
man 53 years old. 3 boxes water-proof boot blacking. 
Received Nov. 29, 1852. 



Oregon City, Oct. 18, 1852. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

In my last quarterly report I omitted to state the amount 
I received for my support, which was twenty-five dollars 
($25.00). This was occasioned by my haste to get my report 
to the office before the mail closed. I have made out a bill 
rather large, but it falls short of the wants of the family. 
I have thoug'ht that, in the event it exceeds the amount due 



358 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

me for the time I have reported, you might perhaps accom- 
modate me with the amount and forward the goods by the 
first vessel up for Oregon and wait for the balance till I 
report again, as it is inconvenient for me to order my family 
supplies oftener than once a year. 

I wish you also to order on my account one copy of the 
New York Recorder, or the Christian Chronicle, as it may 
suit your convenience, and pay for the same in advance, for 
J. M. Barnes, to be directed to Cincinnati Post-office, 
Oregon Ter. 

I believe I acknowledged receipt of yours under date of 
June 25, 1852. I shall leave today for a yearly meeting on 
the French Prairie and shall not return till I have visited 
Rogue River settlements, unless the rains should swell the 
streams so as to make travelling dangerous. 

As ever yours in Christ, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Nov. 29, 1852. 



Lebanon, twelve miles east of Salem, Marion Co., Oregon 
Ten, Nov. 22, 1852. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

Owing to the winter rains coming down with so much 
frequency just at the time I got in readiness to make a tour 
to Rogue River, the fact that the immigration was moving 
on in that direction in such numbers and the great scarcity 
of provisions in that country, all of which would contribute 
to throw the community in an unsettled condition, I con- 
cluded to spend the rainy season in the older and more 
settled parts of Oregon and defer my visit to Rogue River 
and Puget Sound till the opening of the spring. At that 
time the immigrants will find their homes and begin to look 
around them with desire to secure the necessary appendages 
of civilization and a means of grace. From all the facts that 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 359 

have fallen under my observation I have not the least doubt 
there is an important opening for the constitution of a 
Baptist church at the Indian agency only seven miles from 
Jacksonville, a rising mining town near Rogue River.^s^ 
Judge Rice^^o and wife and some two or more members 
besides are located near the agency and will do what they 
can to sustain Baptist preaching. Br. James S. Read is in 
the Umpqua at Winchester, and I learn by a letter that he 
will soon constitute a church at that place. He should be 
reappointed to labor at Winchester and other parts of the 
Umpqua Valley. I am unable to say what will be neces'=;ary 
to enable him to give himself to the ministry. He will be 
able to give you the necessary information. I think he will 
not be able to sustain himself on less than $500 or $600. 
Br. Read is a devoted, studious, thinking, exemplary man 
and wishes ardently to give himself wholly to the ministry. 
Br. Chandler has moved onto a claim twelve miles south 
from Oregon City.^^i This he did with a view of securing 
his family the means of sustenance. We do not blame him 
for making the move, but regret that our best men must 
take their families onto farms because they cannot be sus- 
tained in the towns. We expect he will preach to the church 
at Oregon City this year. We have at this time not a single 
minister located in a town as pastor, unless Winchester may 
be called a town. It seems that we must have a minister 
sustained at Oregon City, Portland and Salem, each, if it is 
possible. We need to have the example given to our 
churches of an efficient, devoted ministry, and this influence 
should go out from our towns. Yet in our towns we have 
few members, and they are not able like our landholders. 
We can find no self-denying man who will leave a flourishing 
church in N. York or N. England and move to our new 



289 In February, 1852, gold was discovered near the present Jacksonville, the 
beginning of successful mining in the Rogue River. Other discoveries soon followed, 
and there was a large influx of miners. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:186. 

290 This was L. A. Rice. He was County Judge for two years. — Mattoon, Bap. 
An. of Ore. 1:137. 

291 This claim, known on government maps as the G. C. Chandler Donation 
Land Claim, is in Township 4 South, Range 2 East, of the Willamette Meridian, and 
is on Milk Creek, about three miles southeast of Mulino, Clackamas County. 



360 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

towns in Oregon without seeing a prospect of having his 
family sustained. Till some provisions are made adequate to 
the support of the ministry, if they are induced to move to 
Oregon with a prospect of sustaining the cause in a rising 
town, they will not long stay where want stares them in 
the face while they see that their wants may be easily met 
by laboring three or four days in a week with their hands 
in the country. At this time wheat is worth from $3.00 to 
$4.00 per bushel, flour $14.00 to $15.00 per hundred pounds; 
fresh beef 14 to 16 cents per pound, rice 25, sugar about 20, 
eggs from 50 cents to a dollar per dozen. A good cow and 
calf $100. Wood from $7.00 to $9.00 per cord. With these 
prices, no minister in Oregon with a small family can support 
his family and give himself entirely to the ministry of the 
word short of $1000 per year. In Umpqua and Rogue rivers 
we must add from 25 to 100 per cent to these prices. With 
all these embarrassments staring the ministry in the face 
and with all these temptations to leave the ministry to serve 
tables we need tried and devoted men. And it does seem 
to me that such men should not be forsaken. Yet we have 
the promise of the Good Shepherd, "Lo, I am with you," 
and we still pray and trust Him and work on, if we have to 
do as Paul did for the Corinthian Church. Our country 
churches are advancing in pecuniary ability and I think I 
can say, too, in willingness to sustain the ministry. If our 
churches are rightly trained, they will soon give liberally 
for the support of the gospel, both at home and abroad. I 
spent Saturday and Sabbath with this church. Sabbath was 
unusually rainy ; few persons were out, not more than fifteen, 
yet it was thought best to take up a collection in favor of 
the Home Mission Society. Accordingly the hat was passed. 
It was rather a family circle than a church. The collection 
amounted to ($3.50) three dollars and fifty cents. I shall 
be unable to take up collections this winter, but hope the 
churches will begin to sympathize deeply with your Society's 
operations by contributing liberally to its support. I shall 
spend most of my time with the churches and destitute settle- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 361 

ments in the Willamette Valley and the valley of the 
Columbia the coming winter. Probably shall spend a Sab- 
bath at Salem during the coming session of the legislature. 
Should you appoint a man to preach one year at Oregon 
City and vicinity who will teach the school, probably he 
would render effectual service to the church and meet press- 
ing wants in the school with a commission of $200 or $300 
salary and we would be supplied with a man who could in 
a great measure superintend the cause of education. Elder 
Johnson is yet feeble, but able to preach part of the time. 
We have an accession to the ministry by the last immigra- 
tion of five or six men, but most of them are far advanced 
in life and manifestly came to Oregon to settle their families 
and to find a quiet repose for their declining years. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Jan. 14, 1853. 

Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Dec. 29, '52. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

Your letters under date Oct. 5 and Nov. 2 and 3 were 
received by the last two mails. Having just returned from 
a tour up the Willamette Valley after a detention at Salem 
and vicinity of two weeks by rains, high water and snow, I 
take the earliest opportunity to answer your inquiries touch- 
ing the cause of Br. Chandler's leaving the school. While he 
continued connected with the school he gave as general 
satisfaction, both to the Trustees and supporters, as we 
could reasonably expect of any man in that station. As far 
as my knowledge extends, all were desirous that he should 
continue in that station. Sometime during the summer 
term (I think) he expressed his doubt whether it could be 
his duty to confine his labors to a school of boys but little 
in advance of a common school in the States. The Trustees 
could not say to a man evidently called to preach the gospel, 



362 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

"You must continue to teach." We, however, expressed our 
wishes that he w^ould continue to sustain the relation he held 
to the school. Near the close of the summer or earh' in 
the fall term Br. C. informed us positively that he must 
leave the school at the close of the year and wished us to 
look out for another man. At that time the church in the 
place felt a strong conviction that they needed more pastoral 
labors performed than Brother C. could do in connection 
with the school and that it was very desirable that we should 
have the undivided labors of a minister in this place and 
vicinity, if we hoped to secure our proportion of influence 
as a denomination in the place where our school was located. 
How much this consideration influenced Br. Chandler to 
leave the work of teaching, I cannot say. Probably some- 
what. It was Br. Chandler's decision that it was his duty 
to leave the department of teaching, and not that of the 
Trustees. If he erred, it was an error of judgment, not of 
design. 

Br. Read was appointed by your Board, I understand, at 
Br. Chandler's request, to be associated with him in the 
school ; I am quite sure it was not at the request of the 
Trustees of the College. But as you had appointed him 
and made the outfit, we regarded it our duty to remove all 
the obstacles \xe could and render every facility to their use- 
fulness as teachers and preachers we could. But I never ad- 
mired the economy or utility of that part of the arrange- 
ment. However, before the close of the second quarter, 
Brother Read signified to the Trustees his determination to 
leave the school at the expiration of the year, or as soon as 
he could be spared from the school, with a strong conviction 
that it was his duty to devote his labors exclusively to the 
ministry of the Word. I have no doubt the Trustees would 
have given him the school when they found Br. Chandler 
must leave, but he could not for a moment entertain the 
thought of teaching and we had no control of his convic- 
tions of duty. He left the school by mutual consent at the 
close of the third quarter. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 363 

It is true the school did not give an entire support for two 
men, yet I think, if Br. Chandler's health would have al- 
lowed him to teach five days in the week and preach occa- 
sionally on Saturday and regularly on Sabbath, that the in- 
come of the school, $200 from your Board and $100 from 
the church would have given him a comfortable living. You 
ask what the school is worth per year. The school last 
year must have been worth something like $600 or $700. It 
must have averaged about 25 scholars at $6.00, $8.00 and 
$10.00 per quarter. The average price was a fraction short 
of $8 per quarter. I think we may safely calculate that, b}^ the 
time our teacher will be ready to enter the school, the school 
will be worth as much the first year as it was last, an'' 
from that time forward we hope for a gradual increase. 

All practical business men in Oregon give their opinion 
that Oregon City must become one of the few important 
places in Oregon. I have no doubt but a good professional 
teacher, with a small family, would be able to sustain his 
family from the school, with a prospect of a gradual increase 
of salary, and find himself admirably situated to exert a 
general influence on the formation of the civil and religious 
character of one of the most important future states in the 
whole union. If we could pay the passage of Br. Post's fam- 
ily out and give him the school when he arrives in the place, 
we would gladly do it. But it strikes me that this is beyonJ 
our power. We have but eleven or twelve feeble churches 
in the territory and they together number less than 200 mem- 
bers — men, women and children — gathered from all parts of 
the western states, a few from the old states, but mostly 
from Missouri. It is no strange thing to me that many of 
them cannot see clearly what relation our school bears to 
the future destinies of the cause of Christ in Oregon, in 
the world. Besides, we must raise $300 or $400 the coming 
summer to glaze our house and thus secure it from the 
weather, and finish another room or two (and I know of 
no man who will do this work but myself, and this must 
be done so as not to interfere wath my appropriate duties 



364 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

as your agent and missionary) and most of this must come 
from men not connected with our denomination, as I inci- 
dentally fall in with them to spend an hour or a night. If 
the country was a little older or the churches had a few 
more efficient pastors, this money might be raised. Since 
Brother Chandler left the school, we have made temporary 
arrangements for teaching and intend the school shall be 
kept up from quarter to quarter till we learn the result of 
your correspondence with Br. Post. We cannot tell Br. 
Post how much he ought to sacrifice for the cause of Christ 
and humanity in Oregon. But this I will suggest, that, if he 
will give his whole soul to God for this work, I think the 
day will come 'before he is fifty years old, if his life is 
spared, that he will find himself connected with relations 
which should satisfy the most aspiring mind and afford the 
richest consolation in the decline of life. It is true our 
beginnings are small, but the destinies of Oregon for the 
next fifty years, who can calculate? 

Very respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
N. B.— Dear Brother: 

Will you give me an interest in your fervent prayers that 
I may do my whole duty to Him who died and intercedes 
for me with the Father of us all. 
Received March 19, 1853. 



Oregon City, Ore. Ter., Jan. 1st, 1853. 
To the Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 

Herein I send you my report of labor as exploring agent 
for Oregon for the 3rd quarter ending December 31st, 1852. 

I have visited during the quarter, Salem, the seat of gov- 
ernment, and Lebanon church, attended the yearly meeting 
of the French Prairie church ; visited Shiloh church, Oregon 
City church, and Molalla church, and spent a Sabbath with 
brethren on Butte Creek, 22 miles south of Oregon City. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 365 

Travelled 435 miles to and from my appointments, labored 
11 weeks during the quarter, collected $3.50 by collection 
from Lebanon Church, paid for travelling expenses $2.50, for 
postage 12% cents. Total $2.62%. Delivered 18 sermons. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Received March 19, 1853. Exploring Agent. 



Oregon City, Ore. Ter., Jan. 6, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. Bap. H. M. Soc, N. Y. 
Dear Brother : 

During the late high water I spent eight or ten days in 
Salem and vicinity and preached one Sabbath. As it was 
the time of the session of the legislature, I availed myself 
of the opportunity of making myself acquainted with the 
members from the different parts of the territory and col- 
lecting what facts I could relative to the extent of the farm- 
ing country and the commercial, agricultural and mineral 
capabilities, the number of population, the prospects of rising 
towns and the number and character of Baptist members in 
their respective districts, the results of which I design to 
embody in a few days, or perhaps weeks, and forward to you. 

Salem contains ten drygoods stores, all of which seem to 
do a very fair business, a flouring mill, two saw-mills, some 
four or five lawyers, three or four physicians, mechanics of 
various descriptions and about five hundred souls. The 
Episcopal Methodists are the prevailing denomination. Here 
is their Oregon Institute^^^ j^ a flourishing condition. Here 
are five Methodist Episcopal preachers,293 four of whom 
hold their land claims, on one of which the town is princi- 
pally situated, and the others are all adjoining. 



292 The Oregon Institute was about to become Willamette University. The 
latter was incorporated six days after this letter was written. — -Bancroft, Hist of Ore. 
11:678. 

293 Three of these Methodist ministers holding land claims were Revs. T. L. 
Parrish, L. H. Judson and J. D. Boone. — G. H. Himes. 



366 CORRESPONDEi\XE OF THE 

The Protestant Methodists sent out a missionary^^^ last 
year overland. He has fixed on this place as the place of 
his operations and is gathering a small church. The Pres- 
byterians are holding occasional meetings here and contem- 
plate forming a church before long. We have a few Baptist 
members wintering immediately adjoining the town but they 
will soon move to the country, perhaps Umpqua. We have 
two Baptist members living two miles north who were 
formerly united with others into a small church in the town. 
But the peculiar features of the land law called them all to 
their land claims. 

I have formerly given you my views of the importance of 
occupying this place. I will repeat them and perhaps enlarge 
upon them : First, it is the seat of government and, whether 
that shall be removed or not, Salem cannot fail to be the 
center of a large and rich agricultural portion of the Willam- 
ette Valley and must have a rapid growth, situated, as it is, 
on the east bank of the river about midway between the 
Willamette Falls and the head of river navigation by small 
river steamers. From all that I know of the people in the 
place and the surrounding country, I think they are not 
generally committed to any denomination, although the 
Episcopal Methodists control a great share of the wealth and 
a large amount of influence. Yet the field in the immediate 
vicinity is very large and easy of access to a faithful, com- 
mon sense, efficient preacher. 

But another most important consideration is the fact that 
we have three young, feeble churches located in important 
farming portions of this county (Marion), ^^s all at this time 
destitute of a minister. Should a Baptist minister be located 
in Salem and preach but half his time in town, he might 
receive a portion of his support from one or two of these 
churches and exert a general influence through the county 
by way of building up these and other churches which must 



294 This was Rev. Daniel Bagley, afterwards prominent in the State of Wash- 
ington. — G. H. Himes. 

295 These were the French Paririe, Shiloh and Lebanon churches. — -Mattoon, 
Bap. An. of Ore. 1:9, 16. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 367 

spring up soon, should the means of grace be enjoyed and 
blessed of God. 

The churches in this county evince a missionary spirit 
and would aid liberally in the support of a man in Salem, if 
they could have his services but one Saturday and Sabbath 
each month. 

The people generally are as much a church going people 
as is common for new countries. The influence in the 
churches is generally good in the country and the members 
have a fair proportion of talents and wealth. But they need 
(like all churches in new countries) habitual training in 
practical Christian duties. A minister, with a small family, 
adapted to fill that place, should be appointed with a salary 
of $700 from the Home Mission Society and he might expect 
the first year to receive $200 from the churches and people 
in Salem and vicinity, if he is a man with fair preaching 
talents in the old States and could command respect from 
the leading men in the territory and the government officers 
who will be located at Salem. As I expect soon to pro 
you with some views on the importance of Oregon as a 
missionary field, I will only add that I conceive it of vast 
importance to the cause of Christ under God that your Board, 
as soon as practicable, sustain in the Willamette Valley at 
least three missionaries — one at Salem, one at Oregon City 
and one at Portland. If all the churches besides receive 
little missionary aid, except as they receive it through the 
influence and labors of these men, we probably can find men 
on claims Who can attend to the wants of the country 
churches for the present better than that these places go 
entirely neglected from year to year. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received March 19, 1853. 



368 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Oregon City, O. T., Jan. 10th, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Brother: 

I wrote Br. James S. Read about eight weeks since sug- 
gesting to him the propriety of his representing to you the 
importance of his field of la'bor and making timely application 
for reappointment, at the same time assuring him that I 
would recommend his appointment as soon as I could learn 
that he had taken the requisite steps. 

I have received no answer and have not learned since what 
he was doing, but presume he is preaching the Word as 
far as he can. Br, Read is a modest, studious, prudent, 
amiable, pious young brother, in my opinion, better adapted 
to take the charge of a well organized church than to per- 
form the pioneer work of an entirely frontier portion of a 
country. Yet he seemed determined on his course and I 
hope the hand of the Lord was in the work. I conversed 
freely with him relative to his peculiarities in this respect 
before I gave my consent that he should go alone into a field 
which seemed to me to call loudly for an offhand, business- 
like pioneer. Had we anticipated with certainty that Brother 
Chandler would leave Oregon City, I think we should have 
thought it advisable, under all circumstances, to have kept 
Br. Read with us. But you know full well that instability 
is impressed in indelible marks on many of our most sanguine 
hopes in a frontier country. May God in His infinite mercy 
give us grace to meet every emergency like men richly 
furnished from the Gospel treasury till Christ shall be hon- 
ored in Oregon. 

Br. Read did not preach so much as other ministers in 
Oregon while he taught. This was his excuse, that he could 
not preach without some previous preparation and the breth- 
ren, as they became acquainted with him, appreciated his 
apology. But no young man sustains a more unblemished 
character. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 369 

I shall soon write him and encourage him to give himself 
to the work of the ministry as far as is consistent with his 
support. May the wisdom of the Most High direct you and 
us, is the sincere prayer of your unworthy brother, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received March 19, 1853. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Jan. 12, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

A. B. H. M. Soc, N. Y. 
Dear Brother: 

The time has arrived in which it becomes necessary that 
arrangements be made touching the field of my labor the 
coming year. To me it is no pleasant task to solicit a re- 
appointment. Yet it appears to me a matter of increased 
importance that the Baptists should have a man in the 
general field in Oregon who shall visit every church and 
town and opening district, at least Umpqua and Rogue 
rivers, Puget Sound^^s and the mouth of the Columbia and, 
at each place, spend a sufficient portion of time to learn 
the respective wants, and follow the openings of Providence 
in preaching the Word. 

Our churches are small and scattered over a large territory 
and generally have preaching but one Saturday and Sabbath 
each month, and some only occasionally; numbers of preach- 
ers have only limited opportunities and labor through the 
week for their bread. Now a visit from a minister in whom 
the churches repose confidence, who will preach the Word, 
administer counsel when needed, present both publicly and 
privately the objects contemplated by the Home Mission 
Society and inculcate the principles of Christian benevolence 
and the importance of cultivating the Christian graces, would 



296 For the early posts of the Hudson Bay Company on the Cowlitz and at 
Nisqually, see notes 298 and 299. The first American settlements on Puget Sound 
were in 1845, near Tumwater. They grew gradually during the following few years, 
but suffered by the exodus to California in 1849. In 1850 a store was erected at 
Olympia and commerce in American ships began. There were perhaps 100 American 
citizens on the Sound at this time. In 1851 Port Townsend was laid out: in 1852-3, 
Seattle. There was steady growth of population from 1850 on. — Bancroft, Hist, of 
Wash., Ida. and Mont, pp. 2, 4, 16, 17, 24. 



370 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

no doubt, under God, contribute more to promote the unity 
and strength of the churches and the earliest establishment 
of the cause of Christ in places of rising importance than 
the confinement of all our ministers to a given limit, station 
or two each. It is to be hoped that something may be done 
the ensuing year by way of aiding the Society in sustaining 
the gospel in Oregon. I am far from saying to your Board 
that I am the man, and still farther from coveting the 
fatigues and cares and domestic privations incident to the 
faithful discharge of the appropriate duties of such a mission. 
Yet, if I know myself, I desire to serve our common Lord 
in the field he seems to assign me by the counsel of the 
brethren who seek to understand the wants of Zion and 
meet them. 

Should your Board judge, in the fear of God, that the 
cause of Christ in Oregon would be judiciously promoted 
by giving me a re-appointment with a salary of $600 and 
travelling expenses, by the grace of God, I will endeavor to 
devote myself to thait ministry, I say $600, not because I 
suppose that sum will cover my family expenses, but because 
I think with that and the means saved by the services of 
the family and rigid economy we can live, by occasional 
mortifications and privations such as were common to our 
blessed Master and immediate followers and always have 
been to the pioneers in the blessed cause. 

(No signature). 
Received March 19, 1853. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Jan. 12, 1853. 
To the Executive Board of the Am. Bap. Home Mission 

Society : 

The Subscriber desires reappointment as exploring agent 
of the American Baptist Home Mission Society for Oregon 
Territory for one year to commence on the first day of April, 
1853. The total amount of my salary necessary for my 
support while exclusively devoted to the labor of said agency 
is $1000 per annum ; the least amount that will suffice from 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 371 

the Society in addition to the services performed by my 
family is $600 per annum and traveling expenses. Should 
the Board comply with this request I engage to devote 
myself wholly to the appropriate duties of the agency in 
accordance with their instructions. 

N. B. — It will be desirable that I should raise $300 or 
$400, sufficient to protect our school building from great 
exposure to the weather and ceil and seat one room, and 
this, it is thought, may be better done by me, without 
seriously interfering with the duties of the agency, than in 
any other way. I would not ask this but from the scarcity 
of laborers in the field and the direct influence the accom- 
plishment of this work will have on the public mind in 
Oregon and consequently upon the cause of missions in 
and out of our churches. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 

This is to certify that I fully accord with the above request 
in every particular except the amount asked for. $600 here 
is no better than $200 in any place that I have lived in. 

GEO. C. CHANDLER. 

I certify that I regard Brother E. Fisher as the best 
minister that we have in this territory for an exploring 
agent and recommend him as such. The amount that he 
asks for his services is small. 

HEZEKIAH JOHNSON. 



Oregon City, Oregon, Jan. 17, 1853. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

I have made inquiries respecting the expenses of the 
journey to Pugets Sound from Colonel Eby,^^'' the member 
of the legislature from Whitby's Island, and find that such 
a tour as would enable me to reach the principal settlements 



297 This was I. N. Ebey. He came to Oregon in 1848, and after a visit to Cali- 
fornia, in 1850, settled on Puget Sound and became prominent in the community. 
He was murdered by Indians in 1857. — Bancroft, Hist, of Wash., Ida. and Mont., 
pp. 15, 29, 137. 

Whidbey Island was first settled in 1848. Ebey settled there in 1850.— Ibid, p. 10. 



372 CORRESPONDENXE OF THE 

on the Sound would cost me about six or eight weeks and 
about ^75 or $100. The route is first by steam to the mouth 
of the Cowletz [CowHtz], thence up that stream to the 
Hudson Bay Company's post on the Cowletz,298 at this place 
hire a horse to Nesqualy [Nisqually],^^^ there leave my 
horse and hire a crew of Indians and canoe to take me to 
the various places rising up along the Sound, a distance of 
80 or 100 miles, and return the same way. From the best 
information I can obtain, there are from 2500 to 3000 souls in 
the whole country north of the Columbia River (some 
estimate the population at 5000) who have never been visited 
by a Baptist minister. A few of these are said to be respect- 
able Baptist members'. This number will doubtless be 
monthly increased. The question I wish to propound is, 
Will your Board justify the expenditure of $100 in traveling 
expenses to have an agent visit that important portion of 
the Territory next summer? Before you answer this ques- 
tion I hope to be able to give you the best geographical 
description of the country I have been able to glean from 
intelligent residents on the Sound. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received March 19, 1853. 



Oregon City, O. T., Jan. 20th, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Brother: 

Yours of Dec. 1st, 1852, has just come to hand and was 
read with deep interest. I have named at two several times 
in my quarterly reports the amount which I have collected 



298 The first Hudson Bay Company's fort on the Cowlitz was one of its old 
stations, and the company had a large farm there. The Jesuits settled there in 1838. 
— Bancroft, Hist, of N. W. Coast, 11:613. The post was in the vicinity of the pres- 
ent Toledo. 

299 Fort Nisqually, of the Hudson Bay Company, was established in 1833, four 
or five miles northeast of the Nisqually River. The company had a large sheep and 
cattle farm there. It was a center of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, an 
organization closely allied to the Hudson Ray Company, and, was the depot for 
curing meat and loading vessels for Russian-American posts. — Bancroft, Hist of N. 
W. Coast, 11:525, 614. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. Z7Z 

for the Oregon City College, not because I regarded this a 
part of my direct duties I owed to the Home Mission 
Society, but because I had reason to suppose it would be a 
matter of gratification to the Board to learn that the cause 
of education was not neglected with the Baptists in Oregon. 
A few of the many reasons for the course I have pursued 
I beg leave to name in this. In Aug. of '49, on my return 
from California, I found a letter from you, pressing upon 
me the importance of the Baptists securing a suitable amount 
of land at some favorable point and commencing a school 
which should eventually take its place among the colleges 
of the land. I acted accordingly. It was finally judged 
expedient to locate that school at Oregon City. My interests 
must be identified with the school till a suitable teacher 
could be found. In this work I think I do not exaggerate 
when I say that I deliberately sacrificed in dollars and cents 
more than half the little property I then had, most of which 
I had dug with my own hands out of the California sandbars 
and gulches in the space of eight weeks. I knew the Board, 
in view of all the circumstances, approved of my teaching, 
preaching Saturdays and Sabbaths and collecting funds when- 
ever opportunities presented ; not in the abstract, but from 
necessity, just as the farmer in a new country makes his 
sled and his plough and repairs his clock. I understand, too, 
that your Board had somewhat departed from their ordinary 
course by appointing for said school two teachers and 
preachers in the same men, paying for* their outfit and sus- 
taining them in part in this two-fold relation. I looked upon 
this, under the circumstances, as the best thing that could 
be done, although I regretted the necessity of giving one 
man the work of two or three. Upon entering upon the 
work of exploring agent I did contemplate doing something 
for the school and I think I wrote you on that subject, and 
I had the impression that I received from you in substance 
this reply, that the Board could not consent that their agents 
should enter into the services of any other society so as to 
interfere with their official duties as agents. But, upon 



374 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

referring to your letters, I find nothing on that subject 
except the instructions given in connection with the two 
commissions, the one in Nov. '51 and the other in Apr. '52. 
I understood those instructions would justify me in co- 
operating with any benevolent society, whenever it could be 
done without sacrificing the interests of the Baptist Home 
Mission Soc. 

In this work which I have performed I have studiously 
avoided encroaching upon the time and duties of every de- 
partment of my agency. Probably in doing this work I have 
not consumed the amount of two days' time, when I could 
have done anything for the Mission Society. Almost every 
man in Oregon had formerly known me as identified with 
the school, and, while in that relation, I always carried our 
building subscription paper in my pocket and, whenever I 
found a friend of education, I introduced our building enter- 
prise and solicited his aid. Thus I have secured many sub- 
scriptions in various parts of Oregon. Numbers of these 
were unpaid when I entered upon the work of exploring 
agent. At that time we had about $4000 invested in the 
house. The house wais enclosed, except the doors and win- 
dows — not one of them made. Our lumber was on hand for 
flooring and ceiling in part. Our school was still in a small 
Baptist meeting house, thus rendering the house unfit for 
a place of worship. Br. Johnson was sick, Br. Chandler 
confined to the school and no man to engage in collecting 
funds; all said that I could do something without interfering 
with my official duties and I must do what I could or the 
work would stop and we as a denomination would suffer 
public reproach. With all these difficulties to meet, what 
could I do in the fear of God other than to pursue the work 
by littles, without interfering with the appropriate duties 
of my mission? I know it is not my business to over-reach 
the instructions, when I have sold my time, unless I am 
permitted to exercise some discretionary power. Yet it is 
my deliberate conviction that the cause of Home Missions 
has been aided indirectly instead of retarded in the work 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 375 

I have performed for the school. I have sought my time 
when travelling on steamers, or spending the night with 
friends, to introduce this subject as incidental business, thus 
adding variety and giving importance to my work rather 
than seriously impeding it. I have informed you in another 
letter that by far the greater part of the funds collected 
for the school building has been from men not directly mem- 
bers of Baptist churches, whose sympathies become enlisted 
for the Baptists somewhat in proportion as they find them 
engaged in promoting the great interests of humanity. I 
have not entered upon this work from pecuniary considera- 
tions, nor from any inclination to covet the thankless drudg- 
ery of begging as some are pleased to term it. But it has 
been because I could not help it while all these and many 
kindred considerations were pressing upon me and sometimes 
preying upon my spirits. 

I have just written your Board requesting" a reappoint- 
ment, with privilege of performing a little more of the same 
kind of work, sincerely hoping when that is done this part 
of the cause of education may rest a few years. I know not 
what kind of a reception the educational part of the request 
will meet in the Board, but I believe they are all good men 
and wise and, if they could be here and see things as they 
are, they would to a man judge of this matter as we do here. 
I sincerely hope the Board will weigh this subject well and 
allow me to do this work in connection with the work of 
exploring agent, so as not to interfere with my official 
duties. I will try to the utmost of my ability to prevent 
interference. I seriously fear that the work must remain 
undone unless it is done this way by me. If another man 
could be found here to do it, I would sincerely rejoice, 
probably more than you all. 

Yours with sincere esteem, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — Cannot Br. Post's passage out in the mail steamer 
be secured free? When Mr. Atkinson returned to the 
States to solicit funds for liquidating the debts of the female 



376 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

seminary building in this place his passage was secured free 
or nearly so. We have built our house without asking help 
from the churches at home and we ask for a man to be sent 
to bless Oregon in sustaining the teaching department of a 
public school of much greater moment than a county female 
school. Will our suit be denied by men making money by 
the hundred thousands? EZRA FISHER. 

Received March 19, 1853. 



Oregon City, O. T., Feb. 3d, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Brother : 

I noticed an article in the Christian Chronicle, under 
the editorial head, with the title "A Field of Promise," 
in which some extraordinary assertions were made, such 
as the following: "Oregon, California) and New Mexico are 
all thrown into our hands inviting us to send into that vast 
region the missionary, the school teacher and the pious lay- 
man to preach and labor for God and His church ; there are 
our mountains and rivers of gold and to them our Eastern 
population are directing their course and pouring in b\- 
multitudes ; in a very few years this newly acquired territory 
may accommodate a population as large as that which the 
whole country now sustains ; there will be the wealth and 
the people and thence will emanate our laws and the great 
controlling influence." 

Now, dear brother, these are certainly startling assertions 
and seem to come from a very respectable source. Were I 
prepared to believe all this, how should I as a missionary 
feel, in view of my responsibility, being one of the fc 
Baptist ministers in all this region so full of promise, and 
everywhere so richly endowed with schools of vice? And 
how should I tremble under the vastness of the responsibility 
imposed upon not more than eight or ten missionaries who 
give themselves wholly to the ministry in this field of so 
much promise? It must be that these assertions are not 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 377 

true or that our old and wealthy churches have not the map 
of the field before them, enquiring, like Daniel, after the 
time and place of the enlargement of Christ's kingdom, or 
we should see more self-denying soldiers of the Cross direct- 
ing their course to this field. I have thought, if half of these 
statements were believed to be true in the able and numerous 
churches, they would gird themselves for this work and 
quadruple their efforts to give the bread of life to the feeble 
rising interests everywhere struggling for existence in the 
settlements as they are rapidly forming through this fie ■ 
of promise. I propose giving in these sheets some geographi- 
cal facts relative to the extent of that portion of the field 
embraced in Oregon, which must be crowded with immortal 
beings in the short space of twenty-five or thirty years. 
Oregon includes seven degrees of latitude, eight hundred 
miles of seaboard, with bays and harbors every sixty miles 
and sometimes more contiguous, and more than fifteen 
degrees of longitude, making an area of somewhat more than 
364,000 square miles.^°° After deducting one-third for waste 
land, we have then a territory large enough for five states 
as large as New York or 32 as large as Massachusetts. It has 
formerly been supposed that the Willamette Valley com- 
prised almost all the desirable resources of Oregon which 
were attractive to the immigrant seeking a home for himself 
and family west of the Rocky Mountains. But instead of 
this being the fact, it is becoming a matter of doubt by our 
best informed, practical men whether this valley will even 
hold the first place in point of importance with various 
divisions now being occupied by the enterprise and daring of 
the hardy, adventurous pioneers of the Pacific Coast. This 
valley, however, from the extreme south, where the prairies 
begin to open out along the principal streams and their 
tributaries, to the junction of the main river with the 
Columbia, is about 170 miles [in length] and varies in 
breadth from 20 to 65 miles ; and even far beyond this, up 



300 The Oregon of this time, of course, consisted of all the territory west of 
the Rocky Mountains between the parallels of latitude 42 and 49 degrees. The area 
is overstated. 



378 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

the sides of the mountains, large bodies of arable lands are 
found which would be sought with great eagerness, if they 
lay unoccupied in the Green Mountains, with the mildness 
of this climate and fertility of its soil. Aside from this, the 
inexhaustible water power and the unexplored mineral re- 
sources of its mountains and its agricultural capabilities 
equal, if not exceed, that of the same number of square miles 
of the most productive parts of Illinois or Missouri. Leaving 
this valley, the traveler passes over a transverse ridge of 
mountains eight miles and enters the Umpqua Valley. It is 
said that a pass has been discovered, but one or two miles 
east of the road, sufficiently level to lay a railroad track 
without grading.301 The Umpqua Valley is about 75 miles 
from north to south and from 15 to 40 from east to west 
and forms a succession of high hills covered with grass and 
scattering oaks, and valleys, ranging from a few rods to 
three or four miles in breadth, with a rich deep soil, which 
extends to the tops of the highest hills. This country lies 
contiguous to the gold mines and is settling with astonishing 
rapidity. Below the Coast Range, on the river bearing the 
name of the valley above, a commercial town is springing up 
by the name of Scottsburg.^^^ j^ all this country there is 
but one Baptist and one Methodist minister. As the traveler 
proceeds south from this valley he passes through a narrow 
defile of another transverse range of mountains ten or twelve 
miles. This pass is called the Canon (pronounced kenyon)3°^ 
and opens into the Rogue River Valley. This is surrounded 
by some of the richest gold diggings in the whole gold 
region of California and Oregon, and is said to contain nearly 
as much farming land as the Umpqua Valley. In this valley 
already 2000 or 3000 souls have taken up their residence; 
among this number two or three families of the first respect- 
ability are known to be Baptists. Here the Methodists have 
established a circuit occupied by two travelling preachers. 



301 This is probably the pass now followed by the Southern Pacific. 

302 See note 277. 

303 This is the present Cow Creek Canon. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 379 

Two years ago not a white man was found in all this valley. 
From this to the California line is a mining country, inter- 
spersed with some good land. 

Along the coast, south of the Columbia and west of the 
Coast Range, are numerous streams emptying into the ocean, 
on several of which are fine bodies of land, large enough to 
form small counties, generally lying about fine bays whose 
entrances are sufficiently large to admit brigs and schooners 
to enter with safety. These streams furnish a vast amount 
of water power and are skirted with immense forests of the 
best fir and spruce in Oregon. At the mouths of these 
streams settlements are being made such as Port Orford, 
the mouth of the Umpqua and Tillamook. But not a single 
gospel minister has ever visited one of these places since 
their settlement. 

Let us now take a brief view of that portion of country 
formerly embraced in Oregon situated north of the Columbia 
and west of the Cascade Mountains. This territory extends 
more than 200 miles from the Columbia to our northern 
boundary and about 140 from the Pacific to the summit of 
the Cascade ridge, having about 300 miles of seacoast, with 
three fine harbors and a small land sea 180 miles in length, 
with an almost endless number of harbors entirely secure 
from storm. And then the majestic Columbia, whose tides 
daily ebb and flow to the Cascade falls, rolls her deep, broad 
column of water along the southern border. 

I know of no state in the union which combines within 
its own limits so many sources of wealth. Timber of an 
excellent quality and in vast quantities abounds oh Puget 
Sound, along the coast and on the Columbia, and water 
power is nowhere wanting to drive the machinery to cut it 
into lumber. Along the Chehalis and south and east from 
the Sound, the country opens into extensive prairies, the 
northern portion of which the white man has not yet 
explored. The Sound abounds with islands, among which 
Whitby's is said to be 60 miles in length and on an average 



380 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

seven in breadth, with a soil unsurpassed in fertility. The 
people residing in this division give it as their conviction 
that the soil as a whole is equal, if not superior, to that of 
the Willamette Valley. Colonel Eby, the member of the 
legislature from Thurston County, informs me that two 
navigable rivers (the Duwamish-'^* and the Snohomish) 
empty into the Sound from the southeast and flow through 
the extensive prairies west of the Cascade Mountains. Be- 
tween the Sound and the ocean much of the land is good, 
but prairies are said to be small. This county, which scarce- 
ly numbered 300 souls in 1850, except the government troops, 
contains at this time a population estimated from 3000 to 
5000, and the present session of the legislature has passed 
bills to organize four new counties, making in all seven 
counties in this new portion of Oregon.^^^ In this district 
not less than ten or twelve towns of importance will soon 
be the result of the enterprise of the present citizens. Saw- 
mills are being put in requisition, and already a considerable 
trade in lumber is carried on from the Sound and the Colum- 
bia. One Methodist minister^^^ affords all the evangelical 
preaching the pioneers of this whole district receive. He 
entered this vast field but last December. 

As we leave this district and pass through the Cascade 
Mountains by the uninterrupted channel of the Columbia, 
sufficiently deep at all seasons to float the largest class of 
river steamers, we arrive at the Dalles east of the Cascade 
Mountains. This may be said to be the head of steam 
navigation of this great river. Here we enter a region of 
country which has been generally described as altogether 
unfit for settlement by civilized man. But instead of this 
being one vast plain of sands covered with little else but 
sedge and artemesia, that portion of the country lying be- 
tween the Cascade and the Blue mountains affords one of 



304 This was the Devamish or White River. 

305 These seven counties were: Lewis, organized by the legislature of 1845-6; 
Clarke; Thurston, organized by the legislature of 1851-2; Jeflferson ; Pierce; King 
and Island. 

306 Rev. John F. DeVore was formally transferred from the Rock River Con- 
ference to the Oregon Conference in 1853, and was the apostle of Methodism to 
Puget Sound. — Hines, Missionary Hist, of the Pac. N, W., p. 418. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 381 

the finest grazing countries in North America, with a soil 
capable of producing all the products raised in the northern 
and middle states in great profusion. The only serious 
obstacle to the speedy settlement of all this region of country 
is the scarcity of timber in the more southern and eastern 
portions and, in some parts, scarcity of water. Yet large 
portions of the north and west of this region are represented 
as possessing both of these advantages. 

That portion of this division lying north of the Colum.V' 
and east of the Cascade range is represented by those who 
have travelled through it as a most desirable region, to 
which immigrants will soon be attracted in crowds. The 
Rev, Mr. Waller^°'' who resided some eight years at the 
Dalles represents this section of the country as one hundred 
miles long and varying from 15 to 50 miles in breadth and 
embracing large bottoms, with timber crowning the hills 
and mountain sides in abundance, also skirting the streams. 
The Rev. Mr. Parrish,^^^ one of the Indian agents, travelled 
over a portion of this region in May and June of 1850. By 
his journals, he travelled one hundred and fifty miles in a 
course first northeast and then northwest. He says he 
passed 17 mill streams and, at the end of his journey, the 
plain appeared so broad that he could see no appearances 
of mountains as far as the eye could stretch its vision. He 
gives it as his opinion that this is a larger body of land and 
more productive than the Willamette Valley. Others who 
have travelled through this region give a similar description 
of the country. Some represent it 100 miles wide in the 
broadest place; others represent it 150 miles across in 
every direction. 

A settlement is now being formed at the Dalles'^^^ and 



307 Rev. Alvan F. Waller came to Oregon as a member of the Methodist Mis- 
sion in 1840. — Bancroft, Hist of Ore. I : 177, 190. 

308 Rev. Josiah L. Parrish came to Oregon in 1840 under the Methodist Mission. 
—Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:177; 11:213. 

309 The Dalles was occupied as a mission station by the Methodists in 1838. 
— Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:162. It was transferred to the American Board in 1847. 
The place was abandoned after the Cayuse war in 1847-8, and only one or two 
persons lived there until the establishment of the government military post in 1850. 
A trading post was then soon established and a town began to grow up.— Ibid, 
11:91, 252, 289, 290. See also the letter of Jan. 15, 1855. 



382 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

another is contemplated on the Umatilla the next summer, 
and the time is near when flourishing states will spring into 
existence above the Cascade Mountains on the waters of 
the Columbia and Snake rivers and their tributaries. The 
missionaries who were stationed among the Nez Perces and 
Flathead Indians^^° represent much of the land occupied by 
those tribes as exceedingly productive in grasses, small 
grains, Indian corn and all the varieties of vegetables grown 
in New York and New Jersey, while it possesses a mildness 
and salubrity of climate nowhere else enjoyed in North 
America. The mineral resources of this country are yet 
unexplored, yet gold has been washed from the sands of the 
rivers, 60 or 70 miles north of the Columbia, which indicates 
the probability that the precious metals, in greater or less 
quantities, lie buried in the sides of all the surrounding 
mountains. 

Now with all these facts spread out before us, shall not 
the spirit of immigration to the Pacific Coast pervading the 
whole country east of the Rocky Mountains be regarded as 
the opening of God's providence to give the commerce of 
Asia and the Pacific Isles into the hands of that nation 
which has displayed the banner of liberty to the nations of 
the earth and which is first of all nations in giving the Bible 
and the devoted missionary to Jew and Gentile sunk in 
degradation and reduced to a stupidity of which the heathen 
gods are too fit an illustration ? I leave others to tell the 
growing numbers which crowd every steamer and clipper 
ship up from California. It is sufficient for me to say that 
Oregon now numbers between 30.000 and 40,000 American 
citizens and it is a moderate estimate to predict that she 
will double her population every two years for the next 
quarter of a century. ^^i 

Who then will give the bread of life to the thousands 



310 These were the missionaries of the American Board in the present north- 
eastern Oregon, southeastern Washington and northern Idaho. 

311 This prediction was hardly fulfilled. The Federal census gave Oregon in 
1850 a population of 13,294; in 1860 it gave Oregon and Washington, which then 
included part of Idaho, 64,000, and in 1870 it gave the three states and territories 
130,000. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 383 

hastening to our borders? Who are to build our school- 
houses and put our rising generations under the tuition of 
pious, efficient teachers instead of leaving them to the sport 
of all the baser passions of the human soul, while schools 
of vice are everywhere spreading wide their desolating, de- 
basing influence over the unsuspecting and unguarded 
youthful mind? To me it seems just as important that the 
missionary school teacher should accompany the home mis- 
sionary to the frontier settlements of all our new territories 
as that the foreign missionary should be attended with 
such auxiliaries. I have felt for years that the right arm 
of the Home Mission Society is measurably palsied by at- 
tempting to separate these essential constituents. If the 
church is commissioned to go and teach all nations, why 
should not the youthful mind be imbued with the principles 
of the gospel in all its acquisitions? I have no doubt our 
brethren at home who contribute liberally to sustain the 
missionary in these new and opening fields desire and pray 
that this cause may want none of the agencies necessary to 
crown the efforts with complete success. Why then should 
not the Home Mission Society assume the responsibility 
at once of seeing at least one school sustained by efficient, 
pious teachers in each of the territories on the coast, 
in direct connection with the missionaries there laboring, 
and that school grow with the growth of that territory and 
be so conducted as to meet the educational wants of our 
denomination there? I believe that such an organization 
under God would add fifty or one hundred per cent to the 
efficiency and permanency of the Home Mission work on 
the Pacific shores. No doubt our field is one of great 
promise, and, being one of so much promise, it demands 
laborers adapted to its culture, and will soon justify the 
outlays. May God direct in devising and executing plans 
precisely adapted to accomplish most harmoniously and 
efficiently His heaven born purpose so wonderfully opening 
in this field for the lalbor and faith and patience of the 



384 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

American churches. Respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received IMarch 29, 1853. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., March 16, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. Bapt. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Brother: 

Yours and Br. Whitehead's bearing date Jan. 14, together 
with an invoice of goods and bill of lading, were received by 
the last mail. I did not design to recommend Br. Read for 
an appointment by the Board of the Home Mission Society 
till he had made an application in form according to direc- 
tions in the annual report. But as our field is so wide and 
our mails so irregular, I thought best to have the way open 
so that your Board might be prepared to act understand- 
ingly, should he make an application for reappointment in 
the Umpqua in due form and give your Board necessary 
intelligence respecting the field. 

Br. Read has left the Umpqua and I am informed he is at 
Jacksonville, a flourishing mining town in Rogue River 
Valley. There are two or three Baptist families of his 
acquaintance in the vicinity of Jacksonville, and one or more 
others have moved there this spring. I think that he was 
making an effort to build a Baptist meeting house in Jack- 
sonville in Dec. Should he succeed in the attempt (and God 
grant that he may), he will undoubtedly find it his duty to 
make that his field of labor, I trust, for coming years. The 
church in this place have so much confidence in Br. Read 
that they unanimously voted to invite him to return and 
take charge of the church as pastor before they knew he 
had left the Umpqua. But now they have little hope that 
he will accept their invitation. I have, in another letter, 
given you my views respecting Br. Read's talents and 
character as a minister. I presume his extreme modesty, 
blended with his spirit of independence, will not prompt him 
to ask of your Board a reappointment till I either see him 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 385 

or receive some communication from him by letter. By 
this move of Br. Read, the whole of Umpqua Valley is left 
without a Baptist minister of any description. I trust, 
however, that a self-sustaining minister at least will find 
his way into the valley and gather up the scattered members 
into a church,-'^" if nothing more efficient can be done for 
that most inviting field. 

SANTIAM CHURCH 

I visited this church and attended their yearly meeting, 
commencing Friday before the second Saturday in February, 
which continued four days. Fifteen miles before I reached 
the place, my horse took fright and dashed me to the ground 
with such violence that, falling upon my umbrella, I had six 
ribs fractured, two in two places each. I howevei; proceeded 
the next day and by walking my horse was able to ride to 
the place ; preached four sermons the three following days, 
but it was attended with much pain in the flesh. Meeting 
was well attended, church seemed much revived and a few 
persons manifested unusual concern for their soul's salvation. 
Br. Stevens, •'^•' now -near Marysville, was present. Br. 
Cheadle is pastor of the church. This church has passed 
through a long series of trials, but seems to be in a healthy 
and promising condition. I should have taken up a collec- 
tion in favor of the Home Mission Society but for the fact 
that the church felt bound to relieve the wants of Br. 
Stevens. On Sabbath, after preaching, Br. Cheadle made 
known the wants of Br. Stevens and a collection of $48.50 
was taken up in his favor. 

WEST UNION CHURCH 

Last Saturday and Sabbath I spent with the West Union 
Church, 27 miles west of this place near the seat of justice 
for Washington County. Here I met Br. Weston,^^* who 
is preaching to the church every Sabbath. He reached 
Oregon last Nov. extremely poor, having left his wife above 



312 See note 328. 

313 See note 284. 

314 Rev. Rodolphus Weston was pastor until 1854. He was a missionary of 
the Willamette Association in 1859. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1 :4, 148. 



386 CORRESPONDENCE OS THE 

the Cascade Mountains with a travelling companion till 
he could come into the Willamette Valley and raise means 
to bring his family down. The West Union Church helped 
him to $100, sent him back for his family, have fixed him 
on a claim of 320 acres of land near the place of meeting 
and one brother has furnished him his breadstuff and 
vegetables ever since. This church are engaged in building 
a frame meeting house, 30 feet by 40, with 13 feet posts, 
the present year. Last Saturday they invited Br. Weston to 
become their pastor and will probably pay him about $300. 
The question of the expediency of their applying to the 
Home Mission Soc. for aid was raised. A leading brother 
from the other church in the Tualatin plains^^^ being present, 
I advised that the two churches should unite and support 
Br. Weston, and, through that means, leave your Board to 
appropriate the amount which would be asked for Br. 
Weston to sustain a preacher at Portland. The subject 
seemed to strike them favorably. I hope these churches will 
take up and sustain Br. W. and think, should you send the 
right sort of a man to Portland, I can raise $50 from these 
two churches the first year for his support. 

After preaching on Sab., I presented in brief the claims 
of the Home Mission Soc. and took up a collection of $9.00. 

Respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received April 29, 1853. 



Oregon City, March 17, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

I wrote you about six weeks since, giving the reasons of 
Br. Chandler's removal from this place as near as I could. 
Be assured we have no designs to keep the affairs of the 
school a secret. I feel that it has been a serious misfortune 



315 This was the West Tualatin (Forest Grove) Baptist church, which was 
organized May 22, 1852.— Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:11. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 387 

to the school that Br. Chandler left it. The two last quarters 
the school has been in the hands of men interested in making 
a living for themselves, who went into the school till they 
could find a more lucrative employment. The school has 
not numbered more than fifteen, and in its most prosperous 
condition eighteen scholars. The second man, a graduate of 
Brown's University, left the school in the middle of the 
term. Had he continued, he would have lost all his school. 
We have now put the school into the hands of Professor 
Shattuck,^^^ the principal of the female seminary of this 
place, and think we shall make no more changes till we can 
get a man to take charge of the school and identify his 
interests with the prosperity of it. The school has just 
opened and scholars are beginning to return, but it will 
require at least a quarter to bring the school to 25. Business 
is beginning to increase in town and I have no doubt but 
by next winter the school will pay a main a fair living. We 
need just such a man as you represent Br. Post to be and, 
were he here, he would, in his appropriate work, do more 
for the general influence of the Bap. cause than any one 
minister can while we leave the school in other hands. I 
wish with all my 'heart I could say to Br. Post, Come out 
and I will pay the passage for you and family and ensure 
you a salary of $1500 the first year. But I am poor in 
available means and cannot do anything till after the meeting 
of the Association in June. Then we hope to have our 
educational interest canvassed and it may be that we can 
secure a denominational pledge. I dare not hope for great 
things, but I will try and do what I can, by God's grace, 
for this as well as for every other interest connected with 
the advancement of the cause of Christ and humanity in 
Oregon. I sometimes almost wish I could be permitted to 
plead the cause of education and religion in Oregon before a 
thousand of our wealthy brethren in our old churches and. 
heaven approving, I would have the money to send a teacher 



316 This was K. D. Shattuck, a native of Vermont, and a graduate of the 
University of Vermont, who was later prominent as a judge, and as a member of 
the Republican party. — Hist, of Portland, ed. by H. W. Scott, p. 514. 



388 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

to Oregon and furnish him his tools to do his work to the 
credit of the cause of Christ in Oregon. But duty calls me 
to labor on here under all the embarrassments incident to a 
new country, and I will try and do it as to Christ. 

Yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
N. B. — Some of our brethren here want me to obtain 
permission to return to the States and present the claims of 
Oregon as a missionary field and at the same time do what 
I can for our school. But I have no desire on this subject 
aside from duty. Oregon is my home and I expect to do 
what little I do in the cause of Christ principally for this 
field. I have no curiosity to gratify and wish not to multiply 
labors to no effect. 

E. FISHER. 
Received April 29, 1853. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Apr. 1, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. 
Herein I send you my report of labor as general itinerant 
under the appointment of the Home Mission Society for the 
fourth quarter ending Mar. 31, 1853. I have labored 13 
weeks this quarter; preached 19 sermons, delivered two lec- 
tures to the Sabbath school in Oregon City, attended two 
prayer meetings and four covenant meetings, visited relig- 
iously 49 families and individuals, visited one common 
school, traveled to and from my appointments 325 miles. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
General Itinerant. 

N. B. — But one Sabbath school is regularly sustained 
through the year in all the Baptist churches in Oregon. The 
church at Oregon City is temporarily supplied by Elders 
Chandler and Johnson. When at home I supply the place 
part or all the day. ^ E. FISHER. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 389 

P. S. (Private) — The churches of the association which 
were opposed to benevolent operations seem more impressed 
with the conviction that the ministry at home must be sus- 
tained or the churches must decline and give place to other 
denominations who will sustain and have a devoted ministry. 
* * * E. FISHER. 

Received May 9, 1853. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Apr. 1, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Br.: 

Herein I send you my report of labor as exploring agent 
under the appointment of the Home Mission Society for the 
4th quarter ending March 31st, 1853. During the quarter 
I have visited Portland and Milwaukie, towns on the Wil- 
lamette, and Santiam, French Prairie, West Union and 
Yam Hill churches. Traveled to and from my appointments 
325 miles; labored 13 weeks during the quarter; collected 
$9.00 cash by a collection taken up in the West Union 
Church. Paid $4.00 for travelling expenses, 25 cents postage. 
Preached 19 sermons and addressed the Sabbath school 
in Oregon City twice and taught the Bible class when I 
have been at home on the Sabbath. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., May 13th, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

Yours of March 19th was received by last mail. I will 
now answer in brief the interrogations respecting our school, 
some of which I think I anticipated in one of my last. Br. 
Chandler holds no relation to the Oregon City College other 



390 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

than any other Baptist minister in the territory, except that 
he is deeply interested in the cause of education and rehgion 
in Oregon. He even declined becoming a member of the 
Board of Trustees while he taught and since he left the 
school the Board has had no annual meeting. 

We have no president of the school. I am president of 
the Board of Trustees. The school is in a feeble state of 
operation under the care of Mr. Shattuck, the principal of 
the county female seminary located at this place. He teaches 
the large boys and has an assistant who teaches the small 
boys and geography, etc. The school at present does not 
meet the wants of the community. But we see no way of 
doing better than to let it be in Mr. Shattuck's hands one 
quarter more. Brs. Johnson and Chandler have both request- 
ed me to go into the school again, but I cannot think of 
making teaching my business for life and, then, this season 
is a time which demands my services with the churches and 
the new portions of the territory to aid as far as possible in 
giving a healthy direction to the partially organized and 
the unorganized interests in our rapidly increasing popula- 
tion. We would be glad to make no more changes in the 
school till we can get a permanent teacher who will identify 
himself with the school. But we cannot see the school 
entirely run down or, what is worse, let it slide out of our 
hands into others, which may be the case unless we keep a 
good man teacher in the school. We cannot, as a Board, 
pledge a certain definite salary to a teacher. We do not 
know how to do this while a very few men in the denomina- 
tion will assume responsibilities. Brs. Johnson, Chand'er 
and myself will have to meet most of the responsibilities, 
should the effort prove a failure, and we are all poor and 
have sacrificed hundreds of dollars each to keep the school 
alive. We however intend to lay the whole business of the 
school before the friends of education next month at the 
annual meeting of the Association and see what we can do 
by way of bringing the school more immediately under the 
control of the denomination. We now want to commit the 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 391 

denomination more directly to the cause of the school. More 
than two-thirds of the funds which have been raised for the 
school have been raised out of the denomination. The 
school must languish, or its whole prosperity must rest on 
a very few men of energy, till the Baptists of Oregon become 
committed to the cause. We are amply able to carry on 
the work, if we can call out the surplus means, but we are 
a new people and not much accustomed to systematic work 
and systematic responsibility. Our town has received a 
new impulse in business this spring and will probably in- 
crease in numbers and in wealth gradually from this time. 
We shall have four or five wholesale houses in the place in 
four or five weeks and about fifteen retail drygoods stores, 
and all the relative branches of business are fast moving 
forward, such as steamboat building, foundries, tinners', 
smiths', carpenters', millers', bakers', butchers', watch 
makers', lawyers', clerks', physicians', etc. I wish you would 
still have the goodness to look out for a teacher. I have no 
doubt but I could support my family by the school the first 
year, should the Lord direct my labor to that employment, 
and now is the time for us to commence, with the present 
permanent increase of population in our towns. 

I have been travelling through the churches the last five 
weeks and shall write you on the subject of the state of the 
churches by the next mail. 

Very respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received June 22, 1853. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., June 13th, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, N. York. 
Dear Br. : 

Yours of March 19th was received, as you will learn before 
the receipt of this ; also yours bearing date April 2d, and I 
now haste to answer definitely some enquiries in that, before 
giving you an outline of my labor the past six or eight 



392 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

weeks, hoping however to have them both ready before the 
departure of the next mail. While I cherish a high regard 
for the piety and talents of Br. Chandler, as your agent I 
will state to you confidentially that I regard Brother Chand- 
ler's removal from the school an unfortunate one both for 
himself as a public man and for the school. Yet there is 
an apology. Brs. Johnson and Chandler have not always 
had the best understanding. Brother Johnson, from the 
earliest public labors of Br. Chandler, did not regard him 
as the man either for the care of the church or the school. 
Although Br. Johnson was passive and too wise to interfere, 
yet Chandler soon found him rather cool and reserved. Br. 
Chandler had not long been in the place before he expressed 
a desire to settle permanently, if he continued in the church 
and in connection with the school after the first year. This 
doctrine did not meet with a very cordial reception with 
Br. Johnson. I assured Br. C. that it was desirable that our 
situations be made as permanent as the nature of the case 
would admit ; yet permanency could only be obtained by 
securing the confidence of our employers, whether we were 
employed yearly or during life. No man laboring for the 
honour of the cause of Christ would wish to become burden- 
some to his friends and the public mind would always judge 
of the usefulness of a man's labors. In the end Br. Chandler 
became convinced that he could not live happily as the pastor 
of the church and president of the school ... he also 
learned that he could not receive such an appropriation 
from your Board as would sustain his family in town, and I 
think he became too precipitate in selecting him a home. 
I have done what I could, without too much interference, 
to induce him to go to Marysville and visit that church, if 
he must leave Oregon City for a claim. But he saw differ- 
ently. The public mind is in a great measure ignorant of 
the causes that operated on Br. Chandler's mind to induce 
him to the removal. I have no doubt from all I hear that 
the public mind regards Br. Chandler as erring in judgment 
in leaving the school and Oregon City. In confidence, I 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 393 

think Br. Chandler never intended to take upon himself all 
the labor of teaching the small scholars, and he found the 
school would not sustain two teachers. Br. Chandler's 
present position is about fourteen miles south of Oregon 
City in a settlement where most of the community cannot 
thrive in business as the farming community will generally 
in a prairie country. He cannot leave his claim now for 
more than three years, without sacrificing almost all he 
has in this world, and he feels strongly disposed to labor 
near home and raise up a religious community around him. 
He means to be a faithful minister of Christ, labors hard 
with his hands through the week, preaches every Sabbath, 
and, what is better, I think he is growing in some of the 
essential Christian graces. But I deeply regret that his 
influence must be shut up in a corner for the present. I 
have two or three times asked him if he would not receive 
an appointment at Salem, or at this place, spend three or 
four days each week in town as pastor and do his studying 
at home, but he seems at present not inclined to receive any 
appointment from the Board, unless he can receive an 
amount that, in his estimation, is about equivalent to the 
value of his labor. I have now stated the case as nearly 
as I can, without going into details, and trust your Board 
will not use this communication either to the detriment of 
Br. Chandler or Br. Johnson. They are both valuable, tried 
Baptist ministers. Br. Chandler would succeed well at 
Salem or Oregon City, with the above named exception, 
and also in Marysville, that place being again suddenly 
vacated by the removal of Br. Stevens to the Umpqua 
Valley. By this removal that young church is left in a bad 
condition in a critical period of their history. But you must 
send an efficient, engaging preacher to Portland, if you can 
find the man. He should be a man of capacity, to meet 
the emergencies of building up a church in a rising city. 
Br. Read, as you have learned before this, was invited last 
fall to take the pastoral care of this church (Oregon City). 
He is now in the place and will probably give the church 



394 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

his answer this week, which will be to decline the invitation. 
He has spent the winter in Rogue River Valley near Jack- 
sonville, the principal mining town on the waters of that 
river; has collected a small church-'^'' of twelve members, 
five of whom are efficient working brethren of the right 
stamp. That church have invited him to become their 
pastor. They propose to pay him $250 and hope to add $50 
more during the year. They also propose to build a house 
of worship in the town the present year, if he will settle 
with them. The Methodist church sustained two ministers 
in that valley last fall and winter, but have left the field 
and, should Br. Read leave, that valley with about 10,000 
souls would be without a gospel minister of any kind. 
I dare not advise Br. Read to leave that field, although he 
would be acceptable here. He endured great privations last 
winter for Christ's sake, paying his board while flour was 
$1.50 per pound and fresh beef fifty cents. Sold his horse 
to pay his board. He needs immediate aid from your Board, 
although I am unprepared to say how much till I visit the 
place and see for myself. He is pious, modest, studious and 
unassuming and wishes to know nothing else among the 
people but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He wants no 
land claim, if he can live as a minister and avoid it and be 
honest. He tells me the church proposed to ask the Board 
to appropriate $500 to his support, but he persuaded them 
to ask for but $400. Should this little church build the 
coming year, probably that sum should be appropriated to 
him. $700 is a small salary for a man in that place and I 
think in a very few years the church will be able to sustain 
their own minister entirely. 

Respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 
N. B. — The church at Marysville needs immediate atten- 
tion. They are able to support a minister, if they fully 



317 This was the Table Rock (Jacksonville) Baptist Church, organized May 
28, 1853.— Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:12. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 395 

understood the value of the ministry. But they are young 
members, mostly from the western states. Yet they have 
paid Br. Stevens during the last nine months. One brother 
told me two months ago that he had paid him in money 
and otherwise $209 and he still expected to help him. The 
same brother told me that he had paid the past year over 
$500 for building their meeting house and supporting the 
ministry. Another brother told me he had paid Br. Stevens 
$140 since last October. Yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received July 30, 1853. 



Oregon City, Ore. Ter., June 14, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, N. Y. 
Dear Br.: 

I shall now only have time to communicate the state of 
things in connection with my labors in Tualatin Plains the 
past month. I attended the yearly meetings of the West 
Tualatin Church on Friday, Saturday and Sabbath, the 22, 
23d and 24th of April. The weather was very rainy on 
Friday and but four persons were in attendance. On Satur- 
day and Sabbath our congregation became unusually large, 
although the weather continued wet and cool, and the house 
being an open log school house (a thing noways uncommon 
in Oregon), the congregation were in a very unfavorable 
condition to be benefited by the gospel ; yet the meeting 
became interesting and, after the public service closed, 
Christians of various denominations expressed a regret that 
the meetings had not been continued through the week. So 
much solicitude was manifested on the part of professors of 
religion that Br. Weston and myself consented to visit the 
church in four weeks and labor three days with that people. 

On the second Friday, Saturday and Sabbath in May the 
yearly meeting of the West Union church, ten miles east 
from the West Tualatin Church, in another [part] of the 
Tualatin Plains, was field. Br. Weston, their pastor, and 



396 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

myself were the only ministers present till the evening of 
the last day. Although a political meeting was held in the 
neighborhood on Saturday and the political excitement pre- 
ceding the general election was waxing warm,^!^ our meet- 
ings were solemn. The brethren began to confess their 
wanderings and give tokens of true penitence for past re- 
missness in duty. On Sabbath some of the impenitent 
manifested unusual interest in the preached word and their 
hearts appeared softened. The meeting closed without any 
evidence that any souls were savingly converted. On Friday 
before the fourth Sabbath in May a meeting was commenced 
with the West Tualatin Church and the first day had not 
passed before we began to witness tokens of Divine favor 
with the brethren who were convened from both the afore- 
named churches, as well as with the brethren from other 
churches. Sinners manifested solicitude for the salvation of 
their souls and on Sabbath a young man and his wife asked 
for baptism. The wife dated her conversion from the time 
of the meeting two weeks previous in West Union Church, 
she and her husband having attended that meeting. At 
three o'clock the congregation repaired to one of the 
branches of Tualatin^^^ River, in which I had the happiness 
of burying these candidates in the watery grave and raising 
them up, I trust, to walk in newness of life. The scene was 
solemn. Before closing the public exercises of the day the 
question was propounded to the church and congregation, 
Will you have this meeting continued? Almost the whole 
congregation, consisting of about 130, rose to their feet as 
an expresion of their wish that the meeting should be con- 
tinued. The meeting was continued with increasing interest 
through the week ; by Saturday the congregation had in- 
creased to nearly 200. During the prayer meeting before 
preaching a brother, who had left the church six years before 
and joined the sect generally known as the Campbellites, 



318 This was the campaig^n preceding the general state election of 1853. — Ban- 
croft, Hist, of Ore., II :309. W. C. Woodward, Political Parties in Oregon, in 
Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar., XII :55. 

319 This branch was probably Gale's Creek, which rises west of Forest Grove. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 397 

rose and confessed his wanderings with deep emotions and 
said he had no other home but in the Baptist church, and 
closed by saying, "I now knock for admittance at the door 
of the church, if you can receive me." He was followed by 
his wife and three others who had been in similar condition. 
Two others came forward with letters, all of whom were 
received into fellowship with the church. An opportunity 
was then given for any who wished to unite with the 
church by baptism ; three young converts came forward and 
related what God had done for their souls and were likewise 
received for baptism ; all young men. The next Monday 
two of these young men were baptized by Br. Weston. The 
other will join the West Union Church very soon. There 
were several other cases of hopeful conversion and the 
meeting closed at the end of eleven days, apparently with 
as much interest in the minds of the impenitent as at any 
period of the meeting. The labors were performed mostly 
by Br. Weston and myself, in connection with Elder 
Porter,32o ^-j^g pastor of the church, and the lay brethren 
present. A meeting was appointed for Br. Weston to preach 
the next Saturday and Sabbath, at which time probably 
others will go forward in the ordinance of baptism. The 
subjects of our discussions were mostly such as the follow- 
ing: The Nature and Consequence of Sin, The Nature of 
Penitence, The Exclusive Claims of the Gospel, The Office 
of Christ as the Atoning Sacrifice and Mediator, In What 
the New Birth Consists and In What the Work of the 
Disciples of Christ Consists. The church will probably 
make arrangements to secure the labors of Br. Weston half 
the time from this time and the two above-named churches 
will make arrangements to pay him about $600 salary and 
liberate him from his blacksmith shop entirely. This church 
are making arrangements to build a good, neat house of 



320 Rev. William Porter came to Oregon from Ohio in 1847 and was for a 
time pastor of the West Union Church. He helped organize the West Tualatin 
Church, near which he had a donation land claim, and was its pastor for some 
years. He died in 1872. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:3, 11, 192. 



398 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

worship at Forest Grove,^^! ^ little village springing up in 
connection with a school designed to be the literary organ 
of the Congregational churches in Oregon. On the whole, 
our Zion seems to have an onward tendency in Oregon, 
notwithstanding the many opposing barriers the enemy raises 
in our way. Pray for us that our faith may increase more 
and more and that we may abound more and more in every 
gospel labor. Yours affectionately, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 
Received Aug. 9, 1853. 



Marysville, Ore. Ter., June 27th, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

The meetings of the Willamette Baptist Association closed 
yesterday. All the churches except two were represented. 
One of that number was the LaCreole Church, some of 
whose delegates last year took the lead in opposing benevo- 
lent operations. All the deliberations were conducted with 
the utmost harmony and resolutions were passed in favor 
of the American Baptist Publication Society, the A. B. H. 
Mission Soc, Sunday schools, Oregon City College and 
religious periodicals. Subscribers were obtained for the 
latter and books sold by the agents of the American Baptist 
Publication Society. The subject of the importance of the 
Baptists in Oregon and Washington territories sustaining 
a religious periodical at an early period was discussed and 
a committee was appointed to correspond with printers and 
editors on this subject and report at the next anniversary.222 
Two churches were received into the body, one of which 
is the Table Rock Church located at Table Rock or Jackson- 



321 The town grew up on the claim of Rev. Harvey Clark, who gave the town- 
site for the benefit of the college. Tualatin Academy was incorporated in 1849, 
and Pacific University a few years later. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore., II :32-3S. 

322 This agitation resulted in 1856 in "The Religious Expositor," which sus- 
pended after twenty-six issues. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1 :24. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 399 

ville, in Rogue River Valley, the other on the forks of the 
Santiam River. ^-•^ Two other churches are organized, which 
will unite with the Association next year. 

The preaching through the sittings was instructing and 
impressive, the congregations good and seriously attentive. 
The exercises will not fail to make a good impression on 
the public mind. We have now arrived at the long prayed 
for period when this body may pass beyond a blighting 
anti-missionary influence. 

At the close of the morning services the claims of the 
Home Mission Society were presented for about five min- 
utes and a collection of forty dollars and twelve and a half 
cents ($40,121/2) was taken up in favor of that Society and 
this morning Sister Margaret Robinson gave ten dollars for 
that object. The churches are small, but are becoming 
convinced that the ministry should abide in their calling and 
that it is the privilege of the churches to sustain their 
spiritual servants, and are fast coming up with the work. 

The churches of the Association have received, the past 
year, 14 by baptism, 38 by letter and relation. Total number 
is 245, number of churches 13, making in all 15 churches 
nominally missionary. Yours sincerely 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Aug. 30, 1853. 



Marysville, O. Ter., June the 27, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A .B. H. M. Soc, New York. 

Dear Br. Hill: 

Herein I send you my report of labor as General Itinerant 
under the appointment of the Home Mission Society for the 
first (1st) quarter ending June the 30th, 1853. 

I have labored thirteen weeks in the quarter. Preached 
twenty-eight sermons, attended twenty-six (26) prayer meet- 



323 This was the Providence Baptist Church, organized April 9, 1853. — Mat- 
toon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:12. 



400 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ings, eleven covenant meetings (11), visited religiously 
sixty-two families and other individuals, two common 
schools, baptized two (2) persons, traveled to and from my 
appointments five hundred and forty-five miles (545) ; ten 
have been received by letter and one by experience and 
eight have been hopefully converted. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
General Itinerant. 



Marysville, O. Ten, June the 27, 1853. 
To the Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

Herein I send you my report of labor as exploring and 
collecting agent under the appointment of the Home Mission 
Society for the first quarter ending June 30th, 1853. 

I have visited as towns Portland, Oregon City, Marysville 
and Albany and Shilo, Lebanon, West Union, West Tualatin 
and Marysville churches. Have travelled to and from my 
appointments live hundred and forty-five (545) miles. Have 
labored thirteen (13) weeks. Have collected fifty dollars 
and twelve and a half cents ($50.12^2)- Have paid one 
dollar and twelve and a half cents ($1.12i^) for traveling 
expenses and twenty-five cents for postage (25) — $1.37%. 
Delivered twenty-eight sermons (28). Baptized two (2) 
persons. Attended a meeting of eleven days (11) with the 
West Tualatin Church in which my labors were almost 
incessant. Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 

N. B. — Received by collection at the Marysville Associa- 
tion $40,121/2. Mrs. Margaret Robinson's donation, $10.00. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 401 

Oregon City, Ore. Ter., Aug. 10th, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, N. Y. 
Dear Br. HiU : 

I have just returned from a seven weeks' tour to our 
Association and thence to Umpqua and Rogue River valleys. 
I found yours of May 4th and 28th on my return. Rejoice 
to learn that Br. Post is finally appointed by your Board to 
the charge of our school, and prayerfully hope nothing but 
God's special providences will prevent his immediately taking 
the steamer for Oregon. 

Yesterday I attended the quarterly examination of our 
school, found that there had been over forty students during 
the quarter and that the average attendance was something 
over thirty. We have employed the same teacher for next 
quarter, hoping that Br. Post will arrive soon enough to 
commence the winter term. 

I shall leave for Washington Ter., especially that part 
bordering upon Puget Sound, in a few days. The tour will 
occupy six or eight weeks. I regret that I could not have 
delayed this tour till next summer as Sept. is the month in 
which the yearly meetings of the churches are mostly ap- 
pointed, except those that are deferred till spring. My pres- 
ence would contribute somewhat to the furtherance of the 
cause of Christ as it relates to the interests of Home Mis- 
sions, our school, and the revival of religion in the churches, 
but God is not limited and I withheld my name from attend- 
ing those meetings in reference to the above-named tour, 
knowing that our rainy seasons commence sometime in 
October and a delay from that tour till after these meetings 
would throw me in heavy rains and open boats in a new 
and sparsely settled country, with nothing but natural roads 
and subject to the necessity of camping out some of the 
nights. My personal attention is much needed in this vi- 
cinity with the churches to raise some funds for the school 
building while the hearts of the brethren are opened by the 
spirit of the Most High to Christian enterprise. But I can 



402 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

only do what I can and leave the event with Him who 
sympathizes with all our desires to see His cause advanced 
in the midst of error, where all our organizations are new 
and feeble. Yet I often, nay daily, cry to Him for more 
laborers who can give themselves to the ministry of the 
Word, in the most liberal sense, to every good work. In 
this I must not fail to request the Board to appoint Rev. 
Jas. S. Read their missionary to Table Rock Church and 
town, more generally known by the name of Jacksonville, 
the seat of justice for [Jackson] County, lying in Rogue 
River Valley. This valley contains about the amount of 
six townships of farming prairie land, about half of which 
is exceedingly rich and fertile ; the remainder is compara- 
tively unfit for cultivation. Portions of the hill and moun- 
tain sides afford good grazing six or eight months in the 
year, while other portions are sterile, except that here and 
there a solitary, long-leafed pine towers above a scattered 
growth of chaparral and manzanita, sure index of desert 
land. But through all these mountains are deposited by 
tne Master hand rich treasures of gold, and thousands of our 
countrymen are here employed in digging and washing it 
from the otherwise almost valueless earth. In this place 
Br. Read found a number of valuable brethren last Oct. or 
Nov., who solicited his sojourn with them through the win- 
ter. In May he organized a church of twelve, including 
himself. The members of the church, without exception, are 
among the most influential citizens in the county and seem 
to understand remarkably well for a new settlement the 
duties and responsibilities of a church. At present there is 
no other minister of any order in the county. Br. Read's 
influence with the citizens and miners is decidedly good. 
The church are about building a meetinghouse in Table 
Rock or Jacksonville, as it is called this season. Have 
agreed to raise $250 for Br. Read's support and say they 
intend to make it $300. Br. Clinton says he will give hnn 
his board and washing and furnish him his horse to ride 
for the year for his part. The church evinces a true mis- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 403 

sionary spirit. Were the church suppHed with a house of 
worship and their own houses and barns built, as is the case 
with churches in older countries, they say they could suppofc 
their own minister. I think Br. Read needs $700 salary in 
order to sustain him in the place. Provisions and clothing 
are at least 50 per cent higher than at Oregon City. 

I cannot predict what will be the final result of the mining 
business but it will pay large wages to the laborer for years 
to come. I think it would be a judicious arrangement to 
appropriate $300 or $400 to Br. Read's support for one year 
in Table Rock and vicinity. Our new counties are more 
fluctuating than older, yet there is an appearance of stability 
sufficient to warrant the appropriation. The principal draw- 
backs to the hope of usefulness will be the instability of 
the mining part of the population. Yet the agricultural 
interests, and even manufacturing interests, will be stable, 
should the mines fail. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Sept. 12, 1853. 



Oregon City, Ore. Ter., Aug. 22, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, N. Y. 
Dear Brother : 

I wrote you by the last mail describing as nearly as I 
could the geographical position and relative in'portance of 
Rogue River Valley as a missionary field. In that letter I 
recommended the appointment of Br. James S. Read as a 
missionary for Jacksonville (Table Rock) and vicinity. In 
this I wish to give you a brief definite view of the Umpqua 
Valley. The rim of this basin is formed by the Cascade 
Mountains on the east, the Umpqua on the south, the Coast 
Range on the west and the Calapooia ^Mountains on the north. 
The distance from the south base of the Calapooia IMts. to 
the north base of the Umpqua Mts. varies from sixty to 
eighty or eighty-five miles, and from east to west from 



404 CQRRESPONDENCE OF THE 

twenty to thirty or thirty-five miles. This basin is little 
else than a concatenation of hills and low mountains inter- 
spersed in every direction with valleys varying in breadth 
from a few yards to three or four miles and in length from 
two or three miles to one hundred and thirty, by the mean- 
derings of the streams. The valleys are almost uniformly 
prairie, except occasionally a grove immediately skirting the 
margin of the streams, and are uniformly rich and well 
adapted to every branch of agricultural pursuits. Every 
twenty acres, under a good state of cultivation, would pro- 
duce enough to support any ordinary family. The hills are 
generally covered with a fine growth of nutritious grasses 
and studded with groves of branched oaks resembling in 
appearance large orchards of old apple trees more than a 
forest of straight, upright trees. These are interspersed 
with an occasional long-leafed pine, while here and there in 
the defiles of the high hills and along the water courses 
are found groves of excellent fir well adapted to fencing and 
building purposes. The valleys are generally too small to 
render all the purposes of religious society convenient, while 
each family claims from 320 to 640 acres of land. Conse- 
quently the minister must travel great distances and preach 
to small congregations embracing a great variety of religious 
views. But the large land claims will soon become divided 
and subdivided as lands become scarce and the prices high. 
This valley will have its own ports and its commerce will 
soon become as distinct from the Willamette as Connecticut 
is from Massachusetts. A few miles from the mouth of 
the Umpqua, on the tide water, a small commercial town 
has sprung into existence by the name of Scottsburg, which 
is approached from the main valley by a pack trail. Twenty 
miles south of the mouth of the Umpqua is an entrance into 
a bay called Cowes Bay (pronounced Coos Bay324) which 
extends into the interior about 30 miles. At the head of this 



324 The name now spelled Coos is of Indian origin, and was the name of a 
tribe and of the Bay. It was variously spelled Cowis, Cowes, Kowes and Coose. — 
F. V. Holman, Hist, of the Counties of Oregon, in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar., XI :39. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 405 

bay a town is soon to be laid ofP^^ and a wagon road 
constructed to the southern part of the Umpqua Valley so 
as to intersect the road leading from the Willamette Valley 
to the mining district. Around the several arms of the bay 
it is said there is a large tract of rich, level, timbered land, 
sufficient to form a small county. Umpqua Valley now 
contains 3000 souls and about twelve or fifteen Baptist 
members, mostly from Missouri and Ohio. Among this 
number is Elder Thomas Stevens,^26 Qf Welch origin, who 
formerly preached in or near Utica, N. Y., and, for the last 
fifteen years, near Sandusky City, Ohio. He says he is 
personally acquainted with W. R. Williams, D. D.,^^? Qf 
your city. I spent two Sabbaths in the Umpqua Valley on 
my tour to Rogue River. On my return, I assisted Brother 
Stevens in constituting a small church at the mouth of 
Deer Creek.^^s fj^g point is one of as much apparent import- 
ance as any in the valley and it is spoken of as the most 
probable place for the permanent county seat. A large flour- 
ing mill is just erected at the place and there are two small 
stores and a post office at the place. Br. Stevens retains 
many of the Welch peculiarities, especially in his preaching 
— full of figures, imagination lively and never fails to interest 
his hearers. Seems not over prudent in the control of his 
tongue; yet if he could live in the midst of an affectionate 
church which could appreciate the importance of a living 
ministry, I think he would be a rich acquisition to the cause 
of Christ. I have my difficulties in recommending him for 
an appointment, yet my prevailing opinion is that he should 
be appointed to preach to the church at the mouth of Deer 
Creek, with liberty to fix his outstations in Umpqua Valley 
according to his own judgment, with a salary of $300 or $400, 
if he apply. I have named this sum because he has a good 



325 The Coos Bay Company was formed in May, 1853, and the first settle- 
ment in the Coos Bay country was made that summer. The town referred to as 
about to be laid out was Empire City. Marshfield was laid off later. — Bancroft. 
Hist, of Ore., 11:331, 332. 

326 See note 284. 

327 See note 236. 

328 This was ten miles east of Roseburg. It was organized July 24, 1853, in 
the house of William Perry. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:13. 



406 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

claim, with a few cows and a team of oxen, within one mile 
of the place where the village will be built; this his family 
and a brother can manage without materially engrossing 
his care or time, so that that sum will be as much for him 
as $600 will be for Br. Read at Jacksonville. . . . 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
N. B. — The Methodists have two ministers in Umpqua. 
Besides these there is no minister of any order except Br. 
Stevens. I trust one of the six or eight Baptist ministers 
now on their way overland for Oregon^^° will find a home 
in Umpqua Valley and help in sowing the seed and reaping 
the harvest in promising fields. The climate in this valley 
is mild and remarkably salubrious. 
Received Oct. 6, 1853. 



Oregon City, Ore. Ter., Aug. 23d, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, N. Y. 
Dear Brother: 

In this I design to write you a general letter touching 
our affairs in Oregon. I will begin with the state of things 
in Oregon City. Our city or rather town has undergone a 
great change in its business appearance during the last four 
months. We have now four wholesale stores and fourteen 
retail drygoods stores, and probably four times the amount 
of goods are sold in a month as in the same month last year. 
We have now a large foundry in operation, where mill irons 
and all the castings for our river steamboats may be made. 
On the opposite side of the river a permanent breakwater 
is being constructed for the double purpose of rendering 
available the water power and putting it in requisition, and 
letting the boats from the upper trade down to receive the 
merchandise at the foot of the falls. Two steamboats are 
now building in our city and one just above the falls, in a 



330 Among these Baptist ministers were Revs. C. C. Riley, J. Bond, W. M. 
Davis, G. W. Bond, D. Hubbard, R. D. Gray, J. D. South and W. P. Koger.— 
Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:100-07, 10, 14. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 407 

village, half a mile above the place, called Canema, in which 
place there are two or three drygoods stores, an extensive 
plough factory and other mechanic shops. Our population 
are all the while changing, yet the tendency is toward a 
permanent increase. Several large business houses have 
been built this season ; three or four more are now on the 
way and will be completed in five or six weeks, and it is 
said that the number does not meet the demand. It appears 
to me that, under these circumstances, the demand for a 
good professional teacher in our school is imperious. In the 
department of teaching, and, as a member of our feeble 
church, acting as superintendent of our Sunday school, such 
a man's influence will no doubt be felt in Oregon more 
than the labors of any pastor of any of our churches. I 
know not how to cherish the thought that Br. Post must 
stop at San Francisco for want of means to bring his family 
from that to this place. I know not how cheaply Br. Thomas 
carries his goods to San Francisco, but I do know that it 
costs nearly half as much to ship them from that place to 
Oregon as it does to ship from N. Y. to Oregon. Br. Post, 
in my estimation, had better have shipped himself and family 
on board the clipper Hurricane for Oregon than to leave 
half his family in N. Y., take the other half and his furniture 
to San Francisco and a few cases of books to Oregon. To 
me this does not look quite enough like burning the ship. 
However, I will do what I can in the case. But the circum- 
stances are rather embarrassing. We feel inclined to the 
opinion that it will operate against the interests of the school 
in our immediate community, if we appeal to the public 
liberality to pay his passage and that of his family from San 
Francisco just at the time when their benevolence is highly 
taxed every year to meet the sufferings of the overland 
immigration by sending them provisions above the Cascade 
Mountains and aiding the poor after their arrival in the 
valley. If we apply to the churches, they are scattered over 
a country almost half as large as the state of N. Y. I think, 
however, an appeal to the churches would meet with a 



408 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

tolerably cordial response. But this I must make, if it is 
done this year. Then your Board are growing impatient 
for me to visit Pugets Sound and, should I delay this 
journey five or six weeks, the rainy season, high waters, 
difficult travelling and the embarrassments attendant to an 
exploring agent's business in the winter, would be the result. 
By advising with the brethren, they say, Delay your tour 
to the Sound till this object is secured. And this is the 
course I should regard Providence marking out for me but 
for the fact that your Board are looking to the Sound with 
a deep interest and I am unwilling to disappoint them. I 
shall endeavor to see the agent of the Rowland and Aspen- 
wall Company''-'^ and do what I can for Br. Post in a few 
days, attend the yearly meeting of the Oregon City Church 
commencing Friday before the first Sabbath in Sept., and 
leave for the Sound just as soon as this meeting closes, 
take the first part of the rainy season into the tour and 
leave the event with Him who does all things well. 

I wish to state that Marion County, with Salem for its 
shire, which is the capital of the Territory, has no Baptist 
minister within its bounds. In this county are three mis- 
sionary and two anti-missionary Baptist churches. The 
three missionary churches are about twelve miles from Salem. 
The three churches are nearly able to sustain one minister. 
Now I think your Board would do well to appoint a minister 
for Salem and vicinity. He will be sure to be taken up in 
part by these churches and receive at least half his support 
from them before he has been three months in Oregon, if 
he is a man in any degree adapted to the work in Salem. 
These churches may despair of finding an immigrant preach- 
er to settle on the public lands and preach to them, as the 
public lands are all taken up in their vicinity. These 
churches, at least two of them, are feeling the importance 
of an efficient ministry given to the work. I know of no 
Baptist member in Salem, yet other denominations, with 



331 The Rowland and Aspenwall Company operated steamships from New 
York to the Isthmus of Panama. — G. H. Himes. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 409 

little strength in the country, are laboring to build up an 
interest here. Salem is growing with the rapidity of west- 
ern towns on navigable waters. 

Albany, also, about 25 miles above Salem, is growing fast. 
In this town we have a feeble church. Albany is the county 
seat for Lynn County.^^^ The church in this place has only 
occasional preaching. I think a good opening for a minister 
will be made in this place before next spring. 
Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Oct. 6, 1853. 



Oregon City, Ore. Ter., Sept. 6th, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Brother: 

I received yours of July 5th, principally in reference to Br. 
Post's outfit, by the last mail. I had just written you that 
I should be on my way to the Sound immediately upon the 
close of the yearly meeting at this place, but the tenor of 
your last letter inclined me to delay the tour to the Sound 
four or five weeks, attend the yearly meetings of two or 
three churches in the valley and perform the double service 
of laboring in these meetings and raising what I can to aid 
Brother Post in his passage from San Francisco to this place. 
At the close of the forenoon service in the Baptist meeting- 
house last Lord's day, the subject of Brother Post's wants 
was presented, and we took up a collection ol $25.35, which 
we shall apply to that object and, as you have now an edu- 
cational department to the Home Mission Society, if it is 
consistent with your rules, you will credit this amount and 
charge it to Brother Post as part of his fare from San Fran- 
cisco to Oregon City. I think we shall be able to raise $100 
or $150 more without materially interfering with my official 
duties, if these are not a part of them, and reach the Sound 
so as to visit most of the important settlements in Wash- 



332 Ivinn County was organized in 1847. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore., 11:715. 



410 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ington Territory and return by the middle of December, 
which will give me five or six weeks of exposure to the 
heavy rains of the winter, unless it should be unusually mild. 
But the cause of our blessed Lord demands this service and 
I shall leave the event with Him and explore that territory 
as soon as I have performed the other service. To human 
probability, a failure of securing Brother Post to this station 
would prove a calamity too great for us to sustain in Ore- 
gon, although our brethren do not justly appreciate the im- 
portance of this enterprise upon the future interests of the 
denomination on the Pacific Coast. 

Our yearly meeting with the Oregon City church has just 
closed. The meetings were well attended, even to a crowded 
house on the Sabbath; at all the services the congregations 
were attentive and solemn, even to weeping, in numbers of 
instances ; yet we have learned of no cases of conversion. 
Brother Johnson preached in the morning; Brother Chandler 
at 3 P. M., and I in the evening. 

The Sabbath before, I preached and baptized a young 
brother who has been led to submit to the Messiah's reign 
within the last three months. The Sabbath school and Bible 
class in this church are still quite interesting, although we 
are destitute of teachers. Mrs. Fisher is the only perma- 
nent teacher in the female classes. Whenever I am at home, 
I superintend the school and teach the male Bible class. 
Since Brother Chandler closed his labors with the church. 
Brother Johnson is our supply, but his health is so poor 
that he can perform no pastoral labors. 

I will here introduce another subject. The long expected 
Coloma has arrived at last, having been out somewhat over 
eight months. Our goods all arrived in good order except 
such as were damaged by the action of the salsoda as it con- 
tracted moisture, dissolved and ran promiscuously through 
the goods. Of the eight pounds of the salsoda put up, we 
found about one-fourth of a pound in the paper. The rest 
had been converted into a fluid and stood in crystalization 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 411 

on the old books, my hat, frock coat, flannel and both the 
bolts of cotton sheeting. About half the hat was as rotten 
as brown paper. The back and part of one sleeve of the 
coat were saturated with salsoda, the colour changed to a 
pale snufif and the texture destroyed ; also a place about the 
size of the palm of my hand in each fold of the coat. The 
coat was literally ruined. The soda saturated through the 
folds of about half of the red flannel, so as to entirely ruin 
about one-third of the bolt, or six yards. We shall lose about 
one-third of both bolts of sheeting, one bleached and one un- 
bleached. I have estimated the damage as follows : 

1 hat, dead loss, $2.00 $ 2.00 

1 frock coat, damaged, $12.00 12.00 

1 bolt of bleached cotton, damaged, $1.29 1.29 

1 do unbleached do, do, $1.23 1.23 

8 pounds of salsoda, dead loss, $0.33 33 

6 yards flannel, @ $0.25 per yard, $1.50 1.50 

Total $18.35 

I am ignorant of the rules regulating insurance offices. 
But this one thing I will say, that I should never have 
thought of packing old books with leather covers around a 
bundle of salsoda and another of saleratus, wrapped in paper, 
and then packed on the top of or underneath a good coat, a 
hat, a piece of flannel and cotton goods, for a voyage of 
twenty thousand miles. It seems that the box was stowed 
away in the ship bottom side up, so that all the liquid sal- 
soda as it contracted moisture settled into the above named 
goods. I have no doubt the vessel was loaded too deep for 
so long a voyage, but I have no expectation that the insur- 
ance company will pay for damages occurring under such 
circumstances. I have stated the facts as nearly as I can 
as they appear to me and leave the matter for you to adjust 
as nearly right as the case may appear in your judgment. 
I will say, however, that I had rather pay for the freight of 
good, clean, dry, white pine shavings than for old school 
books, for in the nature of the case one is worth just as 



412 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

much as the other. The shavings will contract little mois- 
ture ; the books with leather bindings will always mold in 
the hold of a ship. I have learned a profitable lesson in this 
matter (yet it is rather an expensive one for somebody), 
that, should I in coming time order saleratus and salsoda, I 
shall order them put up in tight vessels and packed apart 
from valuable clothing. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Oct. 29, 1853. 



Oregon City, Oct. 1st, 1853. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

Herein I send my report of labor under the appointment 
of the Home Mission Society as their exploring agent for 
Oregon Ter. for the 2nd. quarter, ending Sept. 30th, 1853. 

During the quarter I visited Umpqua and Rogue River 
valleys, and the towns of Jacksonville, or Table Rock, in 
Rogue River Valley; Winchester, on the Umpqua River, 
Marysville, county seat of Benton County, Albany, county 
seat of Lynn County ; Portland, Washington County , Marys- 
ville, Santiam, Lebanon, French Prairie and Oregon City 
churches. Labored 13 weeks during the quarter. Paid $12.75 
for travelling expenses and twenty-four cents for postage. 
Delivered twenty-seven sermons and fifteen addresses, most- 
ly in the yearly meetings. Baptized one person, a young 
man, at Oregon City, and four in the Santiam church. Have 
labored three weeks in the yearly meetings with the Lebanon, 
Santiam and French Prairie churches. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, Exp. Agt. 

N, B. — If time permits, I intend to give you a brief view 
of the influence of the yearly meetings on the churches. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 413 

Oregon City, Oct. 1st, 1853. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as general itinerant for 
the 2nd quarter ending Sept. 30th, 1853. I have labored 13 
weeks in the quarter; preached 27 sermons and delivered 15 
addresses ; attended six churc'h and covenant meetings ; eight 
prayer meetings and visited religiously 98 families and other 
persons ; baptized five persons ; assisted in the organization of 
one church on Deer Creek in the Umpqua Valley; traveled 
to and from my appointments 849 miles. In connection with 
the labors of other brethren in the ministry where I labored 
in yearly meeting, which will not be reported to your Board, 
eight persons have been received by letter, three by experi- 
ence, 12 by baptism and two more were received as candi- 
dates for baptism,^^^ who will soon be baptized by the pastor, 
Rev. Geo. C. Chandler. In connection with the labors of 
other brethren where I have labored, there have been eleven 
cases of hopeful conversion. One young man of promise is 
preparing for the ministry within the Willamette Baptist 
Association. Three Sabbath schools are sustained in the 
churches in the Willamette Valley and Br. Chandler sustains 
one at one of his outposts. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Received Nov. 29, 1853. General Itinerant. 



Oregon City, Oregon, Oct. 3rd, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

I wish to give you a birdseye view of things as they are 
connected with the Baptist cause in Oregon. And first, I 



333 One of these two candidates was a Mr. Jackson. — Mss. Records of the 
Oregon City Church. His initials and the other's name are not given in the records. 



414 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

will give you a brief history of the yearly meetings of the 
past summer and autumn, or rather of the season now pass- 
ing, as they have occurred, a part of which you have report- 
ed in your last associational minutes. The darkness which 
has hung over our feeble churches for the past four years 
has been truly alarming, not on account of any serious out- 
breaks among the members, neither on account of any sinful 
strife and rending divisions occasioned by agitation of 
naughty doctrinal debates. But the four years may prop- 
erly be denominated the years of the reign of gold. Worldly 
mindedness seemed to hold imperious claim upon the throne 
of the affections. But early last spring our brethren in the 
ministry began to manifest something like a fresh anointing 
from the horn of salvation, and almost everywhere it became 
apparent that the ear could be charmed by the simple story 
of a Saviour's love. In May, meetings were held with the 
West Tualatin and West Union churches, during which the 
one more than doubled its members and the last received 
four by baptism. The sessions of the Association passed off 
harmoniously, happily. I then visited Umpqua and Rogue 
River valleys. I found affairs, on the whole, apparently un- 
der the smiles of the great Head of the Church. 

Our yearly meetings were now about to be renewed and 
my mind was distressingly divided between the labors as- 
signed me by your Board to proceed to Puget Sound and 
explore that important field, hitherto untried by Baptist min- 
isters, and what I held as the no less important duty of 
laboring with the churches (dearly beloved by me) in the 
Willamette Valley in their yearly meetings then just com- 
ing on. I often went to the throne of grace for direction. 
Your letter urging the importance of our making immediate 
efforts to help Br. J. D. Post from California to this place 
aided me in deciding the path of duty. Yet I found our 
brethren all of opinion that my duty was to stay and labor 
in these meetings and at the same time, as I chanced to fall 
in with a brother, do something if possible for Br. Post. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 415 

Our meeting at Oregon City was of but three days' con- 
tinuance, with favorable indications, but has not as yet re- 
sulted in any hopeful cases of conversion. The yearly mieet- 
ing with the Shilo church, 11 miles south of Salem, continued 
six days and resulted in five or six hopeful cases of convers- 
ion. Five were added to the church by baptism^^^ and two 
or three by experience. Br. J. G. Berkley''^^ was the only 
ordained minister present, but he was assisted by faithful 
young brethren of the church. The yearly meeting with the 
Lebanon church followed on the 2nd Saturday of September, 
which continued till Monday evening. One was received by 
letter ; the church was revived ; two backsliders were pro- 
fessedly reclaimed and two or three were inquiring what 
they must do, when the meeting closed. The engagements 
of the ministers present were such that we were obliged to 
close the meetings at the very period when it was becoming 
increasingly interesting. From Lebanon church I proceeded 
to the Santiam church as fast as my business would permit, 
traveling through an unusually heavy rain two days. The 
meeting had been in progress for six days, conducted by 
Elder Chandler and assisted by Elder Sperry. The evening 
of my arrival an interesting young man professed a hope in 
Christ, some few backsliders had returned to their first 
love and the church was truly revived. The interest of the 
meetings daily increased till on Sabbath Br. Chandler bap- 
tized three interesting young persons, among whom was a 
young married lady from Holland who could speak but 
broken English. She had been a member of the Presbyterian 
church. She expressed such strong confidence in God and 
such endearing attachment to her Bible as sent a sensation 
of sympathy through the congregation, as she exclaimed in 
broken accents, yet with an eloquence which seemed more 
than earthly, "My dear blessed Bible, that precious book, I 
do love to read it every day ; it is not like your Bible," re- 



334 One of those baDtized was Rev. Andrew J. Hunsaker, since then grown 
to be very prominent in the Baptist work of the state. 

335 This was Rev. Jesse G. P.erklev, 1796-1872. He came to Oregon from 
Missouri in 1852. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:97. 



416 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

ferring to the English translation. All the services of Sab- 
bath were deeply solemn. On Monday evening nine per- 
sons, mostly children of the members of the church, found 
peace in believing. On Wednesday following, Br. Sperry 
and I baptized nine persons in the waters of the Calapooia, 
among whom was a Presbyterian brother and his wife. I 
was obliged to leave that evening, yet numbers were still 
enquiring where they might find ease for their troubled con- 
science. The meetings of the French Prairie church followed 
on the next Friday. This was a meeting of unusual interest. 
Several were found disposed to seek a forgiveness of their 
sins. The church was revived, although we have no cases 
of conversion to record. 

At the urgent request of some of the leading members of 
the Santiam church, I consented to spend the 2nd Saturday 
and Sabbath with Br. Chandler on the south side of the 
south fork of the Santiam. How long I shall continue will 
depend upon the indications of Him who sends His people 
times of refreshing from His presence. Such is the present 
state of things in general in the churches and such the im- 
portance of raising something for Br. Post, together with 
the fact that several Baptist ministers are now arriving in 
the valley with the overland immigration who are seeking 
places for a settlement, where for a season they may be use- 
ful as self-supporting ministers and are asking counsel as to 
the place where they may best serve the cause of Christ and 
their families, that I cannot think your Board would advise 
me to leave this field to explore the Sound, with all the ex- 
posures and uncertainties of winter, while the country is 
very new, provisions scarce, settlements scattered and immi- 
grants, just coming in, are all in confusion. Now my plan 
is to leave the Sound till the waters fall next summer and 
proceed thither immediately after the Association closes, 
during the time of our wheat harvest, so as to be in the 
valley again at the yearly meetings of the churches next fall. 
The people at the Sound raise but little wheat as yet and 
during the summer months a new country can be much bet- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 417 

ter explored than in the winter and the people will more 
readily come and hear the preached Word. I fear I shall not 
be able to raise much more than $100 for Br. Post's passage 
from San Francisco to Oregon City. Money is very scarce 
in Oregon, or rather much more so than it has been since 
'48, and numbers of the brethren promised to do something 
for him, but will be unable to do it in time to meet his wants. 
Many of our forehanded farmers tell me that they have not 
a dollar to their name. But they have barns full of wheat 
and oats and plenty of cattle and horses and hogs on the 
prairies. We have a little money in the Institution treasury, 
so that I hope to be able to forward Br. Post about $150 to 
San Francisco in time. 

You have doubtless read accounts of the Indian war in 
Rogue River Valley^^^ and are waiting with anxiety to learn 
of its influence on our little band of disciples at Jacksonville. 
I have feared much and prayed oft for those lovely brothers 
and sisters, and especially for young Brother Read. The 
Lord has kept them all in the hollow of His hand and I 
believe not one of them has fallen by the hand of savage 
barbarity. It was reported that our beloved brother Judge 
Rice was massacred. But we learned in a few weeks, to our 
great joy, that it was all a mistaken rumor. No doubt the 
business relations of those brethren have been much de- 
ranged and I fear they will be unable to build a suitable 
house for worship this fall ; but the war is ended, except 
with a few scattering clans who may annoy the people some. 
The government will keep a garrison sufficiently strong to 
keep the Indians quiet hereafter. 

I forwarded the letter you sent to Br. Read addressed to 
this place to my care, immediately on its arrival. 

Our school is doing very well this quarter. Mr. Shat- 
tuck^^'' gives his undivided time to it during the regular 
school hours. Yet we must have a man in the school who 
will identify himself with its present and future prosperity 

336 This war broke out early in Tune, 1853, and ended in September of 
that year.— Bancroft, Hist, of Ore., 11:311-321. 

337 This was E. D. Shattck. See note 316. 



418 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

and likewise identiTy himself with the interests of the de- 
nomination, if we will secure the confidence and cordial co- 
operation of all our brethren in the Territory. We must 
bring our brethren to feel that the school stands connected 
with all that is promising in the future of our denomination 
in Oregon and on the Pacific shores, at least, and then we 
shall have patronage most cheerfully. 

But the work of harmonizing discordant materials and 
developing the spirit of true Christian philanthropy requires 
the persevering patience and love and prayers of men more 
than ordinarily devoted to the honor of the King of Zion. 
O, that I had more grace and adaptedness for this work ! 
But for this work I cheerfully live and in this cause I some- 
times feel that I would wish to die, or see the work crowned 
with complete success. Soon, perhaps very soon, we shall 
have young men in Oregon looking to the ministry asking 
instruction from our school, if it continues its existence. 

Yours, 

EZR.\ FISHER. 
Received Nov. 28, 1853. 



Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Oct. 5, 1853. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

The Baptist church in this city last Saturday at their reg- 
ular church meeting took up the subject of providing them- 
selves with a pastor, which resulted in the following reso- 
lutions : 

Resolved that this church invite Elder Hezekiah Johnson 
to become our supply till we can obtain a pastor. 

2. Resolved that we appoint a committee of two, in the 
absence of our deacon, to correspond with the Home Mission 
Society Board to send us a suitable man to fill this place as 
a pastor. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 419 

The meeting closed without any formal action in relation 
to the amount necessary to his salary, but I will be respons- 
ible that $100 will be raised toward his salary in this place ; 
perhaps $150. Now our case is a most urgent one. We have 
never had but little pastoral labors performed in Oregon 
City. The fact that our school is located here demands the 
labors of an effective man every day in the place, who may 
be always ready to co-operate with the teacher by counsel 
and action. Since Brother Chandler left, nothing has been 
done by way of sustaining the Sabbath school, except what 
is done in the school room at the hour, and when I am ab- 
sent, which is about three-fourths of the time, the male de- 
partment is sometimes left without any teacher, ... In 
view of all our circumstances, we must have a minister, ac- 
ceptable to be sure as a preacher, but a practical, pious, 
common sense pastor. 

The Congregational church has such a man here,^^^ the 
Methodists will keep such a man here, the Episcopalians will 
soon have such a man here and the Baptists must have such 
a man here, if they sustain no other pastor in the Territory. 
Taking everything into account, this is the first appointment 
that should be filled, if I do not greatly err in judgment. 
I think you should appoint a man with a salary of $700, 
$100 of which the church will pay. . . . 
Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Nov. 29, 1853. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Jan. 2d, 1854. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Soc. as General Itinerant for the 
3d quarter ending Dec. 31st, 1853. I have labored 13 weeks 
during the quarter; preached 15 sermons; delivered ten lec- 



338 Dr. G. H. Atkinson was the Congregationalist. — G. H. Himes. 



420 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

tures on temperance and to the young in Sabbath schools 
and to young Christians; attended eleven prayer meetings 
and six church covenant meetings; visited religiously 41 
families and as many more individuals ; visited two high 
schools ; baptized one ; traveled to and from my appoint- 
ments four hundred and thirty-eight miles. Eighteen per- 
sons have been received by baptism, in connection with the 
labors of myself and my fellow-laborers, and five by letter. 
The church in Tualatin Plains, called West Union, have 
completed a meeting house ; most of the work has been done 
the present quarter. 

Connected with the churches I have visited are five Sab- 
bath schools, but they are generally small, averaging about 
25 children and four teachers to the school ; probably in all 
about 400 volumes in the libraries. 

All of which is respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
General Itinerant. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Jan. 2d, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. Home Mission Society: 

Herein I send you my report under the appointment of the 
Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for Oregon and 
Washington Territories for the third quarter ending the 31st 
of Dec, 1853. During the quarter I have visited the towns 
of Marysville, Benton County; Forest Grove and Portland, 
Washington County; Oregon City, Clackamas County, and 
Santiam church, Lynn County ; Marysville church, Benton 
County; West Union church twice and West Tualatin 
church, Washington County; have labored 13 weeks during 
the quarter ; collected one hundred dollars to aid Br. J. D. 
Post from California to Oregon and paid the same to Br. J. 
D. Post ; have paid two dollars and seventy cents for travel- 
ing expenses ; twenty-five cents for postage ; preached fifteen 
sermons ; delivered ten addresses ; baptized one person ; at- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 421 

tended one meeting of eight days with the Santiam church, 
during which time Brother Chandler, the pastor, and Br. 
Cheadle, the father of some of the converts, baptized seven- 
teen converts. I was present and preached the dedication 
sermon in the new house built by the West Union church, 
an account of which I shall give you in another letter. 

All of which is respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — I wrote you some time since that I had collected 
something more than $150 for Br. Post's traveling expenses 
from Cal. to Oregon. That all things may appear straight, I 
will state that on the arrival of Br. Post we found that the 
house must have some work done on it to make it comfort- 
able for his family. He therefore agreed to take $100 and 
let the balance be applied to carrying on the work on the 
school building, as a part of the funds collected were 
paid over to me to be used at my discretion where it was 
most needed, either to aid Br. Post or to carry on the work 
on the house. You will therefore credit the donors to the 
amount of $100 and charge the same to Br. Post so that 
your books may stand fair. I will give you the names and 
the amount paid by each person or congregation accompany- 
ing this report. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Jan 2d, 1854. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

The following sums were collected to aid Br. J. D. Post 
from Cal. to Oregon : 

Collection taken in the Oregon City church $25.25 

James Hunt 50 

Israel Chamnies 5.00 

Rev. Richmond Cheadle 8.I21/2 

Joshua Brooks 1.00 

Daniel Smith 2.00 

Collection taken at the Santiam church 12.621/2 



422 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

J. H. Pruett339 2.00 

George Cornelius 3.00 

D. D. Stroud 5.00 

John Trapp 5.00 

Alfred Rinehart 5.00 

Martha Avory 5.00 

Martha Robinson 2.50 

Jeremiah Lewis 1.50 

Arnold Fuller 2.50 

Thomas M. Read 14.00 

Total $100.00 

This hundred dollars you will please credit to the donors 
on your books and charge it to Br. J. D. Post and not to me, 
as I have paid it over to him. In yours of Nov. 9th, 1853, 
I noticed this paragraph, "Ere this I trust Br, Post is with 
you and entered upon his work. I am glad your people 
evinced a liberal spirit in aiding him to get from Cal. to 
Oregon. He is worth and worthy of it. The credit and 
charge will be made on our books and, if you report more, 
we will do the same." 

Now I suppose you charged that sum to Br. Post and 
not to me, as I have paid him the $100 herein reported as 
collected. If you have charged it to me, you will please 
correct the mistake. 
Received Feb. 10. 1854. 

Oregon City, O. Ter., Feb. 24th, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Br.: 

Yours under date Dec. 5th, 1853, giving notice of the ap- 
pointment of Rev. A. B. Cramb for this place, was received 
last mail. Should he prove adapted to this place, he must 
be a valuable acquisition to Oregon. 

In this I have to announce both afiflictive and merciful 

339 Of the above-named donors, J. H. Pruett (1820-1866) came to Oregon from 
Missouri in 1847 and settled near Gervais. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:65. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 423 

dispensations of an infinitely wise providence. God has seen 
fit to remove my beloved wife from a state of probation to 
one of ineffable bliss. At the time I last wrote you I was 
sorely afflicted with boils and detained, much against my 
inclinations, from a tour into the upper part of the Willam- 
ette Valley. On Thursday I told my wife I thought I could 
possibly ride, but the roads were bad, the waters high, and 
she persuaded me to stay till the first of the week. On 
Sabbath morning before we rose she told me that her stom- 
ach did not feel right. Before meeting time we consulted 
whether all should go to meeting, as the roads were bad and 
we had a mile to walk. I advised her to stay with our 
little son, not yet six years old. When we returned from 
meeting about 5 P. M., I found the table spread and, as the 
family came around the table, she took her seat by the fire. 
I asked her if she was not intending to come to tea. She 
replied she was quite unwell and could eat nothing. As I 
turned my attention particularly to her, I discovered that 
she was very pale. I was instantly impressed that her sick- 
ness would be attended with serious results. (I have never 
known her to complain of being sick until she was no longer 
able to sit up.) She went immediately to her bed. . . . 
Inflammation of the stomach and bowels progressed with a 
slow but determined pace till the terrible King removed her 
from all her earthly relations on Friday, the 20th of Janu- 
ary, at five minutes past eleven A. M. I do not design to 
write her obituary now, if ever. She has made her own 
impression in the silent sphere where the retiring pioneer 
missionary's wife is always mostly needed. The most im- 
portant sphere of her Christian usefulness was at home, 
aiding and ever encouraging her husband in his labors, when 
his field lay far from home, which occasioned weeks and 
sometimes months of separation, cheerfully assuming the 
family responsibilities, with no complaints and few intima- 
tions that ours was a mission of privations and trials un- 
known to pastors' families in the older churches. Here she 
always saw that the incense was daily burning on the family 



424 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

altar, so that for almost twenty-four years there has not to 
my recollection been a day in which the morning and even- 
ing prayer has not been offered in my family, our protracted 
journeys not excepted. As an illustration of her influence 
in this respect in the family, the night after we deposited 
her remains in the grave, my little son, to whom I have 
alluded, after we retired to our lonely lodging, asked me, 
"Who will pray in the family now when you are gone?" 
Next to her family, she was ever found taking along with 
her the entire family to the house of God as often as the 
Sabbath returned. Thither she repaired as much to honour 
God in His institutions as to be delighted with an eloquent 
discourse. The Sabbath school has ever been a sphere of 
Christian action in which she seemed at home and she has 
never, except at short intervals, from ill health or causes 
beyond her control, left hef seat as a teacher vacant. I need 
not state to you, dear brother, that she ever took a deep 
interest in all the meetings of the church, especially the cove- 
nant meetings. The women's prayer-meeting found in her 
a warm advocate and personal supporter. Although she 
ever delighted to learn of the progress of missions, both at 
home and abroad, yet her mind seemed peculiarly formed to 
exert a maternal influence. The proper education of her own 
family, in the most general sense of the term, as well as that 
of the rising generation around her, occupied a large place 
in her thoughts and labors. Hence she has for years mani- 
fested a growing interest in religious education and, with 
other periodicals which advocate this cause, she manifested 
a great fondness for the Mothers' Journal. But she is done 
with her earthly labors and I doubt not but she is now 
reaping the rewards of those who come up out of great 
tribulation, although hers was not a martyr's death. But in 
her last illness her Christian character shone resplendent. 
From the first day of her illness she expressed doubts of her 
recovery and frequently conversed freely respecting the in- 
terests of religion in Oregon City, and especially in her own 
family. On Wednesday she called her three children who 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 425 

had arrived at years of understanding, one by one, into her 
room and urged upon them the necessity of immediately at- 
tending to their souls' salvation and obtained a solemn promise 
from each one of them that they would immediately seek for 
pardon through a crucified Redeemer. On Friday morning, 
about four, she discovered that she was failing and asked me if 
I thought she was dying. I told her she was evidently failing 
and unless some favorable change soon took place she could 
not live long. She immediately called her family, said she must 
once more recommend the religion of Jesus and give them 
all the parting kiss. They were called up and came in. She 
counseled us all, gave us the parting kiss and again obtained 
the promise from our son, 19, and our daughters, 14 and 11 
years of age, that they would immediately seek the salvation 
of their souls. About this time she said, "O, how unfaithful 
I have lived! Would to God that I could be instrumental 
of doing more in my death than I have in my life!" She 
continued in the agonies of death from about half-past four 
till five minutes past eleven, yet in the exercise of her reason 
and able to converse at intervals till within a few moments 
of her last. If she lived a Christian, she emphatically died 
a Christian and a soldier of the Cross. Death seemed to be 
disarmed of his terrors. She seemed to have her feet plant- 
ed firmly on the Rock of Ages and there she rested and 
waited patiently for her change, with a calm, firm reliance 
on the righteousness of Christ for her shelter from the 
storm that must overtake the impenitent and the Grace of 
God in Christ for her acceptance with Him. While I found 
myself bereft of my dearest, best earthly friend, with two 
daughters and a son, all under the age of fifteen, on my 
hands, my field of labor seemed closed. All my prospects 
for the future seemed for the present closed. My path was 
darkened. It seemed to me that I could do nothing but 
wait on God. I could not think of breaking up my family. 
To leave the agency at this period, it seemed to me, would 
be attended with consequences far from being desirable. 
On the evening of the burial of Mrs. Fisher I called my 



426 CORRESPONDENXE OF THE 

family around me and inquired after the state of their minds 
and found three of them convicted of sin ; also a lad of 
fourteen then boarding with us.^^° The following Sabbath 
Br. Chandler preached the funeral sermon on the occasion 
of Mrs. F.'s death. The congregation was large and solemn. 
Br. C. preached on Monday and Tuesday evenings at 7 and 
then left for his appointment on the Santiam. By this time 
the interest was so apparent that it was judged expedient 
that we keep up nightly meetings. I then entered the work 
and, with the assistance of Br. Post, who preached frequently 
evenings, and Br. Johnson, who preached once each Sabbath, 
the church continued her meetings nightly for something 
more than two weeks, and, during the present week, we have 
meetings every night except two. I have already baptized 
nine, three more are received as candidates for baptism and 
two more will relate their experience to the Church to- 
morrow; two of the converts have joined the Congregational 
Church, being forbidden by their guardians to join the Bap- 
tist. Their guardians are a Congregational deacon and wife. 
Among those who were baptized, three were my own chil- 
dren, one the lad who boarded at my house at the time of 
Mrs. F.'s death, and one the son of Elder Johnson.^*^ Mrs. 
F.'s physician^-^2 ^nd wife are received for baptism. We still 
have a number of inquirers who are regular members of our 
congregation. The work has extended into the Methodist 
and Congregational churches and they are holding interesting 
meetings at this time. This is the first revival of religion 
that Oregon City has witnessed. Our prayer is that it may 
pervade the whole town and vicinity. \Mth this state of 
things and the church having no minister to perform pastoral 
labors and knowing of no prospect of obtaining a pastor, it 
resolved to invite me to take the pastoral charge and to 
ask the Home Missionary Society to appoint me to this 
place with a salary of $600, the church to raise $100 of it. 



340 This was Charles Shively, son of the first postmaster at Astoria. 

341 This was Hon. William Carey Johnson (1833-1912). He was for many years 
a prominent attorney and member of the Baptist Church at Oregon City. 

342 This was Dr. Majers. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 427 

I never have got my consent to accept of the call on account 
of the importance of the general work which must be per- 
formed for Oregon. Yet, from the importance of sustaining 
this point, my own sympathies for my little, motherless 
family, of girls in part, who need and must have counsel at 
this period of life, together with the dying request of my 
wife that I keep the family together and, added to all the 
rest, these young disciples who are promising and very much 
need proper religious training, I have thought your Board 
would allow me to watch over the interests of this church 
for a few months and perform such agency labors as I can, 
and is much needed, in the vicinity till the time of the 
meeting of our association which occurs in June, after which 
I hope to be able to leave my family and explore Washing- 
ton Ter. in the latter part of the summer and fall. By the 
time our association closes, I hope the work necessary to 
give our school a vigorous growth will be accomplished, at 
least so far that Br. Post can manage the financial affairs, 
in addition to the labor of teaching, for a few months. I 
trust also that Br. Cramb will be on the ground and meet 
with a favorable reception with the church and people. In 
this whole matter I desire to submit myself with prayerful 
resignation into the hands of Infinite Wisdom. From all I 
can gather by the opening providences of God, I now think 
I shall pursue the course above suggested and make a formal 
application for a reappointment as exploring agent by the 
next mail. I think this is the judgment of all the brethren, 
except so far as relates to the members of this church ; and 
even here, their desires for pastoral labor and personal 
sympathy for me and my family may perhaps sway their 
judgment. If there is any reasonable prospect of a pastor 
for this place soon, I am quite sure I shall be the last man 
to preoccupy the place. The mail must leave before I shall 
have time to write more. 

The good work of Grace has been progressing through 
the winter in the Shilo church under the labors mostly of 



428 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Br. Davis^-'^ from Indiana. Clackamas^"*^ church had an 
addition of five last Sabbath by baptism. Elder Hubbard 
will probably settle with that church. 

Affectionately your afflicted brother, 
Received April 10, 1854. EZRA FISHER. 

Oregon City, O. Ter., Mar. 9th, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

Yours of Jan. 18, '54, was received by last mail. I regret 
to learn that the principal bill ordering goods was lost, as 
it will occasion some ten months' delay from this time before 
my family supplies will reach us, some of which are now 
needed. But God's ways are all right and we shall soon 
enough find it true. I will now proceed to order another 

bill as near like the other as I can by my old memorandum. 

* * * * 

Respectfully yours, EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Mar. 10, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

Herein I send you an application for reappointment as 
Exploring Agent and General Itinerant for Oregon Ter., 
with a consent to make the necessary explorations in Wash- 
ington Ter. during the summer and early part of the fall. 

To the Executive Board of the Am. Bap. Home Mission 
Society : The subscriber desires reappointment as Exploring 
Agent and General Itinerant for Oregon Ter. for the term 
of one year from the first day of April next, with permission 
to spend three or four months mostly in Oregon City and 
vicinity, in view of the present peculiar condition of the 



343 This was Rev. William M. Davis, who came to Oregon in 1853 from Indiana, 
and settled near Turner. — Mattoon. Bap. An. of Ore., 1:10. (See note 352.) 

344 The Clackamas Church, about six miles north of Oregon City, was or- 
ganized Nov.. 1853, by the author and Rev. David Hubbard. The latter was bom 
in Kentucky in 1795, moved to Oregon in 1853, and died in 1866. — Mattoon, Bap. 
An. of Ore., 1:14, 104. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 429 

church and the afflicted and unsettled state of my family in 
the removal of Mrs. Fisher by death, with the same salary 
as the present year. EZRA FISHER, 

Exploring Agent. 

N. B. — The undersigned concurs in all the terms and 
statements of the foregoing application. Yours, 

JOHN D. POST. 



Rev. B. M. Hill, Oregon City, Mar. 10, 1854. 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

The last week has been one of interest to the little church 
in this place. Our meetings were continued during four 
intervening evenings of the week. On Saturday at our 
covenant meeting, four interesting young persons came be- 
fore the church, related their Christian experience and were 
received for baptism, and on Sabbath, after the morning 
services, we repaired to the banks of the Willamette where 
I was permitted to baptize seven converts. These make 
sixteen that I have baptized into this church within the past 
four weeks ; one more is received for baptism and we have 
an interesting state of things in our community at present. 
The converts are mostly from the youth and are very prom- 
ising. We have established a weekly church prayer meeting, 
a young men's weekly prayer meeting, a female prayer 
meeting, the young ladies' weekly prayer meeting and the 
monthly concert of prayer, in which a collection for the 
cause of missions is to be taken up at each meeting. All 
the converts take part in these religious exercises, and it 
seems to me that I cannot consistently leave the lambs of 
the fold long at a time till Br. Cramb arrives, or the church 
is otherwise supplied with pastoral labors. Other ministers 
are active in the place and I think your Board would heartily 
approve of the course I have been led to pursue, if they 
were here. Indeed I have not directed my steps for the last 
eight weeks, neither have I tried. Providence in a peculiar 
manner has marked my way and, although in some respects 



430 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

deeply afflictive, I have not ventured to say more than this, 
Lord direct, I will try and follow, although bowed down 
with grief. 

Yours truly, 

EZRA FISHER. 

* * * * 

Received April 26, 1854. 



Oregon City, Apr. 1st, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as General Itinerant for 
Oregon for the fourth quarter ending March 30th, 1854. 

I have labored 13 weeks; preached 35 sermons; delivered 
two temperance lectures, and 23 addresses at the special 
meetings of Oregon City church and Clackamas church ; 
attended 34 prayer meetings and six other religious meet- 
ings ; visited religiously 124 families and other persons ; 
visited two public schools in Oregon City; baptized 16 
persons into the Oregon City church ; traveled to and from 
my appointments 48 miles ; received one person by letter ; 
22 persons have been hopefully converted in Oregon City 
in connection with my labors ; monthly concert is established 
at Oregon City church ; took up a collection at the monthly 
concert for March of $3.75 for missionary purposes, object 
not yet specified ; connected with the church is a Sabbath 
school, and Bible class of about 25 scholars ; more than half 
of the school are in the Bible class. Three teachers ; about 
75 volumes in the library. 

Our meetings continue interesting. We have a few en- 
quirers and shall probably soon baptize others. I remain 
most of my time in this place and vicinity, it seeming my 
duty to look after the interests connected with this church 
and school, while I can render some service in the important 
towns on the river and attend two yearly meetings, namely, 
at Marysville and West Tualatin churches, before the meet- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 431 

ing of the association, which will occur the last of June. I 
trust by that time Br. Cramb will reach this place, so that I 
can feel it my duty to proceed to Washington Territory 
without delay. I have no doubt of the importance of an 
early exploration of that Ter., yet so providential have been 
the demands for my services in this valley that I have acted 
up to a conviction of duty and I believe with the cordial 
approbation of every brother conversant with our wants in 
Oregon and Washington territories who are on the ground. 
I am quite sure that your Board would approve the course, 
if they were on the ground and explored the field for them- 
selves. 

I feel no disposition to undervalue the judgment of your 
Board or to disobey their instructions, but have endeavored 
to do as nearly as I believed they would, if they were 
individually in my place acting for Christ's interests on the 
Pacific Coast for all coming time. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Apr. 1st, 1854. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 

Herein I send you my' report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for 
Oregon and Washington territories for the fourth quarter 
ending March 31st, 1854. 

I have visited Portland once, Clackamas church twice and 
spent a large portion of my time in Oregon City with the 
church and co-operating with the college, when I could do 
it without materially interfering with my specific duties. 

I have traveled 48 miles to and from my appointments, 
exclusive of my labors with the O. City church ; have 
labored 13 weeks during the quarter ; have preached 35 
sermons and addressed the people 23 times, in connection 
with the special meetings in the O. City and Clackamas 



432 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

churches, having the conducting of all the meetings at O. 
City church ; delivered 2 temperance addresses ; have baptized 
16 persons into the Oregon City church. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 



N. B. — Our young members are of more than usual prom- 
ise and, although mostly youth, seem to be enquiring for 
the line of duty and willing to do it. I have never enjoyed 
so much consolation with the same number of young dis- 
ciples as I have with these. 

Yours, 
EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Apr. 2d, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

In reviewing my labors for the past year in connection 
with the Zion of God in Oregon, while I have to deplore 
my great unfaithfulness as a minister of the blessed gospel, 
I have been led to rejoice that the spirit of the Lord has not 
been entirely taken from me. God has been graciously 
pleased to grant me the privilege of laboring with five 
churches in the time of more than usual manifestations of 
Divine favor, where the enquiry has been made, "What must 
I do?" and the sinner has been pointed to the Lamb of God 
as the only cure for the sin-sick soul. Another church 
within our association, with which I have spent numbers 
of Sabbaths, has also been highly blessed with a work of 
grace. In these churches, as near as I can estimate, one 
hundred and two hopeful converts have been added by bap- 
tism. Of this number I baptized twenty-six, three of whom 
were my own dear children, rendered doubly dear by the 
recent death of their mother, and have witnessed the baptism 
of thirty-seven more. When we take into account the scarce 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 433 

population of the country and the small numbers in each 
church, so that most of these churches have been more than 
doubled in numbers and the cultivation of the means of 
grace quadrupled, we feel that this year has been emphati- 
cally the time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. 
Most of the accessions have been children and youths frou; 
eight to twenty-four years of age and a large proportion 
are lads and young men of more than usual promise, some 
of whom I trust will be found among the future ministers 
of Oregon, perhaps of Asia. To be sure we are subject as 
churches to all the changes and many of the discouragements 
of a frontier county, yet our prospects are surely becoming 
more and more bright. While our churches have been 
blessed with a harvest of souls, God has not been unmindful 
of our school, the Oregon City College. Br. Post's arrival 
was hailed with gratitude to Almighty God by some of the 
friends at least. I shall not soon forget the feelings that 
came over my mind when I learned in Portland that he and 
his family were at my house. Our school was at a low ebb. 
He has entered upon his labors with the energy of a man in 
earnest. His labors have been appreciated by the public 
and the school for the last four months has been as pros- 
perous as could have been reasonably anticipated under the 
circumstances. Thus you see that God is graciously pleased 
to prosper thus far, but with our prosperity, new responsi- 
bilities and new wants are multiplying. We now more than 
before need pastors for these churches and missionaries to 
enter upon other important fields opening in every direction. 
Our school building must be put in a condition to meet the 
pressing wants of Br. Post's family and the school, which 
we hope to do, God favoring, but we feel that we must have 
immediately a chemical and philosophical apparatus to meet 
the public wants and we feel that we must look to the 
friends at home to furnish it. I trust you will second Br. 
Post's efforts to accomplish this so desirable enterprise. 
On the whole, although the hand of the Lord has been laid 
heavily upon me in the removal of my beloved wife, I think 



434 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

I can see the Lord is on our side and will assuredly bless us 
although He prepares the way by severe trials of our faith. 
We will take courage and submit our whole cause to the 
Lord and trust in Him for His future blessings by waiting 
in the spirit of humble confidence for the openings of His 
providences. Yours affectionately, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received May 25, 1854. 

Oregon City, Ore. Ter., Apr. 7th, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc, New York. 
Dear Brother Hill: 

Last week, at the request of Br. Newell, our teacher of 
music, formerly from New York, I visited Portland, with a 
view of stirring up their minds to immediate action on the 
s'lbject of raising the standard in that place, preached on 
Wednesday evening to a large congregation in the Congre- 
gational house, and visited Wednesday in the afternoon and 
Thursday morning with the members. I found the following 
members, some of whom you know personally: Br. Josiah 
Failing, formerly deacon in the 10th St. Church, New York, 
his wife, two sons and a daughter; Br. Coe,^^^ formerly 
postal agent for Oregon, and wife ; Br. Leland, Postmaster 
at Portland, and wife ; Br. Simmonds, merchant, and wife, 
from Boston, . . . Sister Burnell, from Ninth Street 
Church, Cincinnati, Ohio, an enterprising, intelligent sister 
(her husband is in the steam saw mill business), and Sister 
Hosier, a widow, in the millinery and fancy clothing busi- 
ness. Since I left, I learn that Br. Pine and wife from San 
Francsco have located there. Br. Pine is in merchandising 
and he and wife come highly recommended as active young 
Baptist members. I have little doubt there are other Baptist 
members in the city who would co-operate with the church 
if one should be constituted. Really they have double the 



346 This was Nathaniel Coe (1788-1868). He was appointed postal agent for 
Oregon in 1851. He later settled near the present Hood River. — Bancroft, Hist, of 
Ore., 11:189. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 435 

numbers and quadruple the ability the church at Oregon 
City had before our late revival. I urged upon the leading 
members to establish weekly religious meetings for prayer 
and conference, look directly to God for His blessing and 
then make their wants known to the Home Missionary 
Society's Board. I am satisfied that, with a comfortable 
place of worship and a good, faithful, acceptable minister, 
the Baptists might expect, under God, to exert as much 
influence in the place and prosper as much as any religious 
denomination now in Portland. I felt peculiarly impressed 
that now is the time to strike in Portland. There seemed 
to be a good religious atmosphere with the brethren and 
especially with the sisters. They want to see the standard 
raised there, but they say they must have a house and a 
minister at once and build their own houses, and they say 
they do not see how this all is to be done unless they can 
get more fo»"eign aid than they can re?sonably expect. 1 
urged them to make their wants known to you as soon as 
they could get to understand what they wanted and what 
they can do. They said they would call a meeting soon 
and deliberate on the subject. I assured Br. Failing that I 
should be down and stir them up in five or six weeks, if 
they did not act promptly in the mean time. 

This is the most important place in the territory to be 
occupied by the Baptists, after Oregon City, and, but for 
our educational interests, it would be much the most import- 
ant place of the two, at least at present. A minister ought 
to be appointed forthwith to that place with a salary of $700 
to $800. A man worth that money to that place would build 
a house in one year there, hard as the times are, with three 
or four hundred dollars from the building funds of the Home 
Mission Society, if he went to his work trusting alone in 
the Owner of the Universe and the Disposer of men's hearts, 
and money too. God grant that you may find the man and 
put him into that field. Portland is the New York for 
Oregon at present, at least for the trade of the Willamette 
and Columbia River valleys. My soul is pained when I 



436 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

think of the delays of the Home Mission Society to occupy 
this town, or I might say city, and Oregon City. I trust 
we shall soon see Br. Cramb, and that a man of God will 
soon be on his way for Portland. 

Yours in the bonds of the gospel, 

EZRA FISHER. 
N. B. — I shall order you to pay three or four dollars to 
the editor of the Mothers' Journal soon, also to pay my 
subscription for the Christian Chronicle to the end of the 
present year. 
Received May 25, 1854. 



Oregon City, Ore. Ter., June 17th. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

Yours of Apr. 3d, announcing my reappointment, and one 
a few days later, condoling me on account of my late 
bereavement and answering my request to remain at Oregon 
City a few months, came duly to hand. I now take my pen 
to present before your Board the importance of immediately 
occupying Portland, but before stating my views I would 
refer you to Br. Taggert, Br. Failing's old pastor, for infor- 
mation on that subject, as I understand that he has written a 
long letter to said Taggert, giving a general view of things 
in Portland. Br. Failing was deacon in 10th St. Church, 
N. Y. There sometimes are times in the history of a town 
in the new portions of our great missionary field where it 
really seems that things form a crisis, and one opportune 
movement of a religious denomination may give them all 
the advantage of years of hard labor in establishing a per- 
manent interest. Such appears to be the door now opened 
in Portland. 

I have it from the Methodist minister in charge at Port- 
land that he wonders why the Baptists do not occupy 
Portland. Why, he says that the Baptists have more wealth 
and influence in Portland today than any other denomina- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 437 

tion of Christians. Yet the Methodists have expended within 
the last four years more than $8,000 on that place and the 
Congregational Church have had a stated ministry in the 
place almost five years.^^'' Yet all the Baptist preaching 
they have had has not exceeded thirty-five or forty sermons, 
and that mostly by myself. I can now sit and enumerate 
17 Baptist members in Portland, five of whom are in Br. 
Failing's family, two in Br. Coe's, our former postal agent, 
two in Br. Leland's family, the post master of the place and 
a graduate of Brown's University, and others of respectable 
standing in Baptist^ churches in Boston, Cincinnati and San 
Francisco. But they feel now that they must have a minister 
on the ground adapted to secure an influence and then they 
can commence and build a house by the aid of the amount 
they might receive from the building fund connected with 
the Home Mission cause. They say it is no use to do 
anything by way of monthly preaching in other denomina- 
tions' houses. It is labor bestowed to build up other 
churches and hold back the very cause most dear to us as 
Baptists. Br. Failing says (and what he says they all say, 
and I suppose he says what Br. Thomas in your city thinks), 
that, if the Home Mission Society will send them a suitable 
man and pay him $600 salary, the people of Portland will 
do the rest. I say there is no doubt they will pay from $100 
to $200. The man should be adapted to carry along at 
once the work of building a good house of worship. Br. 
Failing will be active in the work. It would be very desir- 
able that such a man should be appointed as would meet 
the approbation of Br. Thomas, and especially the approba- 
tion of the Lord Jesus Christ. I do not believe such a man 
can be sustained in that place for less than $800 per annum. 

Yours, 

E. FISHER. 
Respecting Br. Post, I think all things are about right and 
trust his school will give him a support. This school has 



347 Rev. Horace Lyman, who had come to Portland in 1849, was settled there 
until the spring of 1854. The church building was dedicated in 1851. — Bancroft, 
Hist, of Ore., 11:679, 680. 



438 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

averaged 40 scholars since the first two weeks. We are 
finishing the building as fast as we can in these hard times 
for money, while I am detained at Oregon City. I shall 
write you immediately on the close of the meeting of the 
association, which takes place next week. 

As ever yours in Christ Jesus, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Oregon City, June 17th, 1854. 
N. B. — I sent you a bill for goods to be filled by you, 
I think in the month of February. I have heard nothing 
from you on that subject yet and am becoming somewhat 
anxious, as the first bill forwarded in October was lost and 
my family supplies are becoming pretty well exhausted. I 
think I shall hear from you however by the next mail on 
that subject. If my second bill has not been received please 
inform me immediately. Yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received July 24. 



Oregon City, Ore. Ter., July 8th, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

The Willamette Baptist Association closed its sessions 
last week on Monday. The sessions were harmonious in 
the main and exhibited strong evidence that the churches 
are becoming more impressed with the importance of a 
devoted ministry and of united Christian effort for the 
suppression of vice and the diffusion of the gospel of Christ. 
During the last associational year most of our older churches 
have enjoyed pleasing revivals and the account of the Chris- 
tian character of the young members is truly pleasing. The 
churches have received by baptism since the last anniversary 
106.^*^ Four small churches were received into the associa- 
tion this year. Our net increase is 197, and our total number 



345 At least one of these men, Rev. A. J. Hunsaker, became a minister. Another, 
C. C. Sperry, who had been previously baptized, but who was aroused in 1853, was 
later ordained. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:106, 108. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 439 

442. The association raised a subscription of $165 to employ 
a man to travel and preach in Lane County, which lies at 
the head of the Willamette Valley and north of the Cala- 
pooia Mountains. $60.50 was paid on the spot. On Sabbath 
a collection of $13.10 was taken up for the same object. 
Elder Robert D. Gray^'^^ was employed to enter that field 
immediately. In this field is one small, languishing church, 
and there are now materials for one or two churches which 
we trust our missionary will organize the present season.'''*^ 
Br. Gray will be kept in the field till winter, perhaps the 
entire year. In addition to the above named funds, we have 
$7.00 in the treasury designated to the preaching of the 
Word in this valley. The churches in Yamhill and Polk 
counties have agreed to sustain Br. Riley''^° the coming year 
to travel in those counties, supply monthly the three 
churches in that field and spend the remainder of the time 
in supplying destitute settlements a part of the time. During 
the sessions of the association reports were made on the 
subjects of establishing a religious press in Oregon and on 
ways and means for supplying our churches and destitute 
towns and settlements with preaching. Resolutions were 
passed favoring the general objects of the denomination, 
such as the Home Mission cause. Publication Society, the 
Sunday school effort and the circulation of religious periodi- 
cals. During the time, the friends of education held a meet- 
ing in which an informal report of the trustees of the 
Oregon City College was made. The school was found to 
be in a prosperous condition under the tuition of Rev. J. D. 
Post. Since Professor Post entered upon his labors, it was 
found that the average number of scholars in attendance 
was 40. By the treasurer's report, it was found that $4611.13 
had been collected and expended on the building for the 

348 Rev. R. D. Gray (1850-1871) was born in Tennessee and came to Oregon 
from Arkansas in 1853. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:105. 

349 The existing church was the Willamette Forks Church, which had been 
organized in 1852. Two others, the Palestine and the Mount Zion churches were 
organized later in 1854. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:16. 

350 This was Rev. Cleveland C. Riley. He was born in Tennessee and came 
to Oregon from Missouri in 1853, settling near the I,aCreole Church. — Mattoon, 
Bap. An. of Ore., 1:100. 



440 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

school since the commencement of the work, and that the 
building was about $150 in debt. A resolution was passed 
recommending the trustees to complete the building as soon 
as practicable. On Thursday, before the meeting of the 
association, an interesting ministers' meeting was held, a 
constitution and rules of decorum for a permanent organiza- 
tion adopted and the ministers' meeting regularly organized to 
meet annually, the day preceding the meeting of the said 
association. You will be furnished with the minutes of the 
association as soon as printed. On the whole, while we 
deplore the miserable inadequacy of ministerial talent appro- 
priated and the almost entire destitution of Baptist preaching 
in most of our important towns, we are led to rejoice with 
exceeding great joy that the progress of the cause of our 
blessed Redeemer is onward and we trust the time is not 
far removed when all churches will be supplied with an 
efficient, devoted ministry, and flourishing churches will be 
raised up in all our growing towns. For this we will labor 
on and sacrifice and pray till the good Lord shall make our 
Zion a name and a praise in the land. 

Affectionately yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Aug. 12, 1854. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., July 19th, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

Yours of May 30th was received by the last mail. No 
doubt God's providences are all right. Yet we are so short- 
sighted creatures that we often wish for the time they might 
be otherwise. I seriously regret that Br. Cramb is delayed 
till fall. It appears to me that it is a final failure, yet we 
may be as happily disappointed in his case as we were in 
Br. Post's. I will not despair of his coming till I am 
obliged to give up all hope. But how shall I dispose of my 
time in the mean time ? It seems exceedingly desirable that 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 441 

T be among the churches and new settlements through the 
fall months during the time of their yearly meetings, most 
of which come off in Sept. and Oct. The rising towns on 
the Columbia River, from its mouth to The Dalles, just at 
the east base of the Cascade Mountains, should be visited ; 
and then there is Pugets Sound in Washington Ter., which 
I have promised you that I would visit this season, and 
then the church in this place, and the outdoor work for the 
school should be attended to immediately. It seems to me 
that I cannot stay at home any longer. If there is any 
prospect that your Society can occupy the Sound by two 
practical, common sense, pious ministers, I would not fail 
to explore that region this fall. But if I must spend six 
or eight weeks of the best of the season in exploring the 
country, perhaps preach twelve or fifteen sermons and leave 
the territory two years more before a man is sent to break 
up the ground and preach the gospel of the Kingdom, it 
would seem that we had better attempt to cultivate the 
already too wide and neglected field in the Willamette 
Valley. In the absence of any positive instruction from you' 
on the subject, I shall try and look to the Great Head of the 
church for direction, and you will not be surprised to hear 
from me in Washington Ter. in six or eight weeks after the 
receipt of this. I may be able to receive all the reliable 
intelligence necessary to enable me to give you a general 
view of the demands of that very important portion of the 
country, but as yet I have nothing reliable since I last 
wrote you on that subject. The Dalles is fast coming into 
importance and, although at this time there is not more than 
one hundred or one hundred and fifty white people in its 
vicinity, it is an important trading point and must ever be 
the key to the whole country of the Columbia River above 
the Cascade Mountains, and at no distant day must become 
a populous city. At this time there are five dry goods 
stores at that place. I think I shall try and visit that place 
this fall, while the immigrants are there, and spend one or 
two Sabbaths. This place has such a commanding position 



442 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

that I know of no place where an effort will be so sure to 
be attended with permanent results. Another important 
town will rise up at the Cascade Falls of the Columbia, 40 
miles below The Dalles, and at the head of ship navigation 
on the Columbia. Respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
July 19th, 1854. 
Dear Brother Hill : 

I am in need of some funds to defray my traveling and 
family expenses and have an opportunity of exchanging $150 
or $200 with Brother Post by drawing an order on you. 
I have therefore agreed to make the exchange with Br. J. D. 
Post. The order will probably be drawn in favor of Br. 
Pike, the manufacturer of mathematical instruments in N. Y. 
I shall send the order in two or three weeks. When you 
send me the bill of the goods, please let me know how my 
account stands on your books. 

Yours respectfully, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Aug. 24. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Sept. 26th, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Society. 
Dear Brother: 

As yet I have heard nothing from the goods I ordered you 
to put up for me, except a line from you stating that you 
would fill the bill and ship the goods the first opportunity. 
It is now almost a year since I made the first order. My 
family had depended upon them for their summer clothing 
and now we are looking with anxiety for them for our 
winter supply. We fear the bill of lading has been miscar- 
ried. I have heard nothing from you, except by the Record, 
for two months. Please inform me at your earliest conveni- 
ence whether you have shipped the goods ; also when we 
may expect them, if they are not already shipped. I presume 
you have done as well as you could in this matter, but, if I 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 443 

could have anticipated the results, I think I should not have 
ordered the goods, but made my drafts and clothed my 
family here. But no doubt God designs all for the best. . . . 
Your unworthy brother in Christ, 

EZRA FISHER. 
N. B. — The yearly meetings w^ill soon be over for this 
season. You will then hear from me respecting our towns ; 
also respecting Washington Territory, or I shall visit and 
report by actual explorations. Yet our brethren here are 
very unwilling to have me leave the Willamette Valley, in 
view of the great scarcity of laborers and the pressing calls 
from the churches and destitute places where important 
Baptist interests might be built up if we had the laborers. 

Yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Nov. 10. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Oct. 1st, 1854. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for 
the 2d quarter ending September 30th, 1854. 

I have visited the LaCreole Church in Polk County, ten 
miles west of Salem, Santiam Church, Lynn Co., 35 miles 
south of Salem, and Yamhill Church, 7 miles west of 
Lafayette, seat of justice for Yam Hill County and 40 miles 
southwest from Oregon City. Traveled 205 miles to and 
from my appointments. Have labored 13 weeks during the 
quarter. Have collected $5.50, it being a collection taken up 
in the Oregon City Church on the first Sabbath in July. 
Paid for traveling expenses $1.50; for postage $.25. Preached 
30 sermons. Have attended three yearly meetings in the 
above-named churches, all of which were blessed with more 



444 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

than usual manifestations of Divine favor. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 

^ ^ ^ ^ 

P. S. — I have made out this report on the 26th of Sept. 
on account of my leaving tomorrow for a yearly meeting on 
the Calapooia River with the Pleasant Butte Church,'^^^ 
Lynn County, 42 miles south of Salem. 

Yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Oct. 1st, 1854. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. 
Dear Br.: 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as General Itinerant 
for the second quarter ending the 20th day of Sept., 1854. 

I have labored thirteen weeks in the quarter ; preached 
30 sermons ; attended 10 prayer meetings, three church 
covenant meetings; spent three weeks wholly in three yearly 
meetings, preaching, praying and exhorting as the cause of 
Christ seemed to demand; visited religiously 51 families 
and other persons ; traveled 205 miles to and from my 
appointments. In connection with the labors of my asso- 
ci'ates in the ministry, 1 has been baptized into the Santiam 
Church, 22 into the LaCreole Church and 4 received by 
letter, and 4 were baptized into the Yam Hill Church, all of 
whom were baptized by the respective pastors of said 
churches. There have been 30 cases of hopeful conversions 
in these churches. I have visited the LaCreole Church in 
Polk Co., ten miles west of Salem, Santiam Church, 35 
south of Salem, Lynn Co., and Yam Hill Church, 7 miles 
west of Lafayette, the seat of justice for Yam Hill Co. The 



351 The Pleasant Rutte Church, Linn County, was organized Nov. 16, 1853, by 
Rev. G. C. Chandler and others. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:16. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 445 

church at Oregon City sustains the monthly concert of 
prayer and have taken monthly collections at the same, 
amounting to about $9.00. The church at Oregon City took 
up a collection on the first Sabbath in July of $5.50 for the 
Home Mission Society. Sabbath schools, one with the 
Oregon City Church, the same as last quarter reported, one 
with the LaCreole Church. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
General Itinerant. 
Received Nov. 10. 



Oregon City, Oct. 8th, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bapt. Home Mission Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

Yours of Sept. 18th containing your account with me, also 
a bill of goods sent me by the Am. Bapt. Home Mission 
Society Sept. 6th, amounting to $466.66, with a bill of lading 
for six boxes and two barrels of merchandise, were received 
by the last mail. Was very glad to learn that they are on 
the way. Since I last wrote I have visited West Tualatin 
Church and spent nearly a week with the Shilo Church on 
a council called on account of difficulties existing between 

Elder and the majority of the church on one hand and 

the minority of the church on the other. Br. had been 

quite imprudent and serious charges were preferred against 
him, but with not sufficient proof to induce the council to 
recommend his being deposed from the ministry.^^^ After 
three days' and two nights' hard labor, the council gave 
their advice to the church and all the parties concerned, 
which resulted in an amicable adjustment of all difficulties. 
We have felt the necessity of our church members under- 
standing and practicing gospel discipline in case of difficul- 
ties before they come before the church. Our Divine Master 



352 This was Rev. William M. Davis. Shortly after the first council here 
mentioned, a second council was called, which urged drastic action, and the church 
entirely repudiated him. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:10. 



446 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

has condescended to give us the most simple and yet the 
most perfect rules for discipline either in private trespasses 
or public immorality. 

Yours with sentiments of Christian affection, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Dec. 26. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Oct. 17th, 1854. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. Bap. Home Mission Society. 
Dear Brother: 

I have just returned from the yearly meeting of the 
Pleasant Butte Church, seventy-five miles up the valley 
from this place and thirty-five south of Salem. This church, 
like all our churches, is located in the heart of a flourishing 
country admirably adapted to grazing and the growing of 
wheat, corn, oats and all kinds of vegetables and fruits 
adapted to this climate. I spent ten days with the church, 
preaching Saturdays and Sabbaths and one sermon each 
night. The meetings were interesting, but not attended with 
the same results as last year. During the meeting six were 
added by letter, one was received for baptism, there were 
two hopeful cases of conversion and four or five others were 
manifestly interested in their souls' welfare. Br. Wm. 
Sperry is the pastor with whom I have labored. This chvirch 
has a flourishing Sabbath school and meets every Sabbath 
for preaching or prayer. The converts of last year appear 
very well. The church will probably hire a man and put 
him on Br. Sperry's farm the coming year and by this means 
mostly liberate him to the work of the ministry in that 
church and vicinity. This is much better than the entire 
neglect of the ministry. This closes up our yearly meetings 
till the opening of the spring. I had hoped that I should 
have been able to give particular attention to Washington 
Ter. at the close of this meeting, but there are two pressing 
calls, one in Washington County and the other in Marion, 
twelve miles south of Salem, which are obviously more 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 447 

immediately important than the exploration of Washington 
Ter. at this season of the year. Our brethren here urge a 
delay of the exploration of that territory till another season. 
So also the Methodist minister^^^ who has charge of that 
district advises. I am collecting facts relative to the region 
of Pugets Sound and shall be able to give you a pretty 
general view of the relative importance of that country in 
three or four weeks. My present impressions are that the 
Baptist cause in that region is not suffering so much for 
the want of immediate attention as the more populous parts 
of Oregon and California are. Here we have numbers of 
organized churches, which must be visited occasionally, and 
of settlements where churches might be constituted if they 
could have the encouragement of preaching four Sabbaths 
in a year, and for want of which labors our members are 
either lying still or joining Methodist and Cumberland 
Presbyterian churches. I visited Salem on my return from 
Pleasant Butte Church last week. Find Salem, the capital 
of the Ter., with a population of about 1200 souls, with a 
Methodist Episcopal church and a good house of worship, 
a protestant Methodist church and house nearly finished, an 
Episcopal house completed and a Congregational church and 
house completed. Found but five Baptist members in the 
place and but one of them who can be considered permanent. 
There are two members probably permanently located two 
miles from the town who wish to promote the cause in 
town. The whole surrounding country is settled mostly on 
section claims one mile square. The place must have a 
rapid growth. There is no doubt but a man if sent there 
and supported would call a small congregation around him, 
if his talent were popular and piety undoubted, with good, 
sound common sense, and he might hope to see his congre- 
gation increase with the growth of the place. Besides, a 
good substantial, efficient minister located there would do 
good service through the whole surrounding country with 
its four Baptist churches. Salem certainly should not be 

353 This was Rev. John F. De Vore.— G. H. Himes. 



448 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

long neglected by your Society. Some aid no doubt could 
be obtained from the surrounding churches towards sustain- 
ing an effective minister in that place. Yet most of a 
minister's salary would have to come from home, and it 
would require from $600 to $800 to give a family of ordinary 
size an annual support. I have no doubt but the expenditure 
for such an appointment would be judicious, if your Board 
can sustain such a man there after supporting the suffering 
cause at Portland and Oregon City, both of which places 
are probably in greater need of a minister than Salem. 
Portland has some permanent and able supporters. At 
Oregon City is our school for the Territory. All our towns 
are subject to frequent changes, yet they are towns, and will 
continue to be places of trade from which an influence will 
be continually going out into the surrounding country and 
into tbe whole world. A minister's Sabbaths should mostly 
be spent in town unless he can have his place filled occasion- 
ally by proxy, or little can be effected by the side of other 
organized churches with a stated Sabbath ministry. 

As ever yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 

* * * * 

Received Nov. 25. 



Oregon City, Ore. Ter., Nov. 8th, 1854. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bapt. Home Mission Soc, New York. 
Dear Br. Hill: 

This is to inform you that Rev. William F. Boyakin,^-^^ 
formerly from Carrolton, Illinois, and late of St. Joseph, 
Missouri, arrived in Portland about the tenth of October 
with his family. Since that time he has been preaching to 
the scattered Baptist brethren in that place. I visited Port- 
land three weeks since on a tour west and south. Found he 
was making a favorable impression on the minds of the 



354 Rev. W. F. Boyakin helped to organize the Portland Church in May, 1855. 
In 1856 he moved to Corvallis at the invitation of the church there. — Mattoon, Bap. 
An. of Ore., 1:11, 14. Mattoon says he was from Mississippi. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 449 

Baptist members and the public ; gave them some advice. 
Since my return Br. Boyakin has preached in this place. 
He informs me that the Baptist members have invited him 
to labor with them in Portland for one year and that they 
have agreed to ask the Home Mission Society to appoint him 
as their missionary to Portland for one year with a salary 
of $800, $200 of which the people pledge themselves they 
will pay. They therefore ask your Board to pay him $600 
of the $800. I have the impression that your acquaintance 
with Br. Boyakin's reputation as a preacher is better than 
mine. I think he has been favorably known, both in Illinois 
and Missouri, as an effective Baptist preacher. I think from 
the short acquaintance I have with him that he is well 
adapted to get up an interest in Portland. He commends 
himself at once to the people as an eloquent man well 
acquainted with that form of human nature which develops 
itself in our rising towns in the West. He seems to have 
the true missionary spirit. Should he continue to wear as 
he now promises, we have no man in Oregon so well adapted 
to that field as he is. I think he will need $800 salary to 
support his family (of 7 persons I believe) in Portland. I 
think the people will supply $200 of the salary, probably not 
more the first year. Br. Boyakin is poor, having expended 
almost all his means in reaching the field, seems desirous 
of trying what he can do in Portland and I am now im- 
pressed favorably with the thought that the Lord has 
directed him in a very favorable time to his appropriate field 
of labor. He is calling a good congregation to a school- 
house which the brethren have fitted up temporarily as a 
place of worship. As it relates to the importance of the 
place, you hardly need any further information. Portland 
is the principal port for Oregon at present, numbering 
probably about 2000 souls, with from 30 to 50 trading houses, 
wholesale and retail, and must, for years at least, be the 
most commercial town in the Territory. When the resources 
of the country are developed, I think the great commercial 
city of the Columbia River will be somewhere below the 



450 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

mouth of the Willamette River, yet Portland will even then 
be an important point. By a reference to the map of the 
surveyed parts of Oregon, you will see that it is 14 miles 
above the mouth of the Willamette in the heart, or rather 
at the foot, of one of the most fertile portions of country in 
North America. Our country is fast filling up and, although 
at present the influence of the Nebraska and Kansas move- 
ments may for two or three years somewhat retard our 
onward progress, ^^^ yet I think the immigration will be 
checked only to flow in more abundantly when the Nebras- 
kan excitement shall have worked its discontent among the 
early settlers to that territory. I trust your Board will be 
prompt in making the appointment and may God in His 
infinite mercy bless to the building up of a strong interest 
in Portland and the surrounding country. 

With much esteem, your unworthy brother, 

EZRA FISHER. 
N. B. — Br. Boyakin, in behalf of the brethren in Portland, 
will make the application stating the time they will wish 
the appointment to take effect. 
Received Dec. 26. 



Oregon City, O. Ten, Jan. 1st, 1855. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Society: 
Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for 
the third quarter ending the thirty-first day of Dec, 1854. 
During the quarter I have visited Portland twice, the Cas- 
cades in Washington Ter., The Dalles, east of the Cascade 
Mountains, West Union Church, West Tualatin Church 
twice, Shilo Church and a settlement of unorganized Baptists 
near the junction of the Columbia and Sandy rivers in 
Clackamas County; labored 13 weeks; traveled to and from 
my appointments 617 miles; paid nine dollars eighty-two cents 



355 The Kansas-Nebraska Act of May, 1854, organized these territories and 
left the question of slavery to the vote of the settlers. This led to a large immi- 
gration to these regions from both North and South. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 451 

($9.82) for traveling expenses and eighteen cents ($0.18) for 
postage ; preached 20 sermons. I attended a council in case 
of difficulty of a serious kind in which I labored three days 
and almost two nights, with but six hours' intermission. 
The result of our labors seemed blessed under God in restor- 
ing union to the distracted church. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Jan. 1st, 1855. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bapt. Home Mission Soc. : 
Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as General Itinerant for 
the 3rd quarter ending the 31st day of Dec, 1854. I have 
labored thirteen weeks in the quarter ; preached 20 sermons ; 
attended six prayer meetings, two church covenant meetings 
and one council of three days ; visited religiously fifty-four 
families and other persons, one common school ; traveled 
to and from my appointments six hundred and seventeen 
miles. Connected with the churches I have visited are three 
Sabbath schools, one in Pleasant Butte Church on Calapooia 
River, Lynn Co., one in West Union Church, Washington 
County, 'and one in Oregon City, numbering each about 
twenty-five scholars and four teachers. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
General Itinerant. 
Received Feb. 9. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Jan. 15th, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Society. 
Dear. Br.: 

I take my pen to give you a brief account of my late tour 
from this place to The Dalles, a rising town and a military 



452 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

post on the Columbia near the east base of the Cascade 
Mountains. 

I left home on the 17th of Nov. and traveled twenty-two 
miles north to the mouth of the Sandy, a stream nearly as 
large as the Mohawk, which rises in the eternal snows of 
Mount Hood and flows into the Columbia at the west base 
of the Cascade Range, twenty-five miles west from the 
celebrated Cascade Falls. Having failed of reaching the 
Columbia in time to take the regular steamer, I was detained 
several days till the next trip of the boat. Here I found 
between fifteen and twenty Baptist members, including an 
aged minister (Br. Bond), with an enfeebled wife for many 
years mostly confined to her bed. They are scattered 
through a fertile, timbered, undulating country eight or ten 
miles from north to south and perhaps half that distance 
from east to west. Br. Bond is preaching what he can while 
laboring with all his powers to obtain a comfortable support 
for himself and helpless family. These brethren occupy 
prospectively one of the most important country positions 
in all Oregon, but at present they have to contend with all 
the inconveniences of removing forests of enormous growth 
before they can reap a harvest from their generous soil. 
However, they will soon be placed above want and probably 
abound in the farmer's wealth. A church will be constituted 
here in the coming spring, if not before. This point is more 
promising than many fields in the Mississippi Valley where 
labor and money are expended by missionary societies. 

The following week I took the steamer and visited The 
Cascades, a town site, with eight or ten families scattered 
on the north bank of the Columbia for a distance of three 
miles from the head to the foot of the Cascade Falls, about 
midway of the Cascade Mountains, from east to west. These 
families have resorted here for matters of speculation and, 
with few exceptions, manifest less desire for the bread of 
eternal life than for the mammon of unrighteousness. This 
is the great natural gateway through the Cascade Mountains 
and must at no distant day become a place of great com- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 453 

mercial and manufacturing importance, it being the head of 
ship navigation to the Columbia and there being a vast 
region of the best grazing country in North America on the 
Cokimbia and its hundred tributaries, which must soon be 
put in requisition to graze the cattle and horses of Oregon 
and Washington territories. Occasionally through the sum- 
mer a Methodist circuit preacher has visited and preached 
in this place. Here I found one pious Methodist sister and 
one or two Campbellite members. The country on the north 
bank of the Columbia is now settled with families and 
bachelors most of the way from this place to Vancouver, a 
distance of forty-five miles. 

The next week I took the steamer^^e {qj- fj^g Dalles ; 
ascended the broad, deep Columbia twenty-five miles to the 
mouth of Dog River,357 a considerable stream tumbling down 
with great rapidity from the snowy sides of Mt. Hood. 
Here I found Br. Coe, late postal agent for Oregon, and 
wife. This settlement consists of three white families, but 
will soon be swollen to fifty or 100. The steamer having 
left me, on the 29th of November, to save a week's delay 
and an exorbitant price for an Indian and horses, I took my 
post-bags and traveling apparel on my back at ten A. M. 
and took the emigrant trail, which lay over high mountains 
and through deep defiles, and, although the thawing of the 
frozen ground coming in constant contact with my India 
rubber boots rendered the traveling exceedingly slpipery, 
I reached the first settlement, three miles from The Dalles, 
a distance of eighteen miles, at four P. M.., unusually 
fatigued, yet grateful to the gracious Giver for strength to 
perform even the physical labors of a pioneer missionary. 
I found twenty-four families, including three or four of the 
officers and soldiers, in this place and vicinity, beside a 
number of white men who had married Indian women and 



356 This steamboat was probably the "Mary," the first steamer to run between 
the Cascades and The Dalles. — Bancroft, Hist, of Wash., Idaho and Mont., p. 145. 

357 This is the present Hood River. It was called Dog Creek, because in the 
early forties some immigrants camping there were reduced to dog meat for food. — 
G. H. Himes. 



454 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

some thirty or forty single men in trade and farming, and 
gambling, as I had good reason to suppose.^^^ Here are 
stationed two or three companies of government troops to 
defend our frontiers from Indian invasion. Here also are 
constantly a considerable number of Indians, amounting to 
forty or fifty families, who dwell here and cultivate small 
fields of potatoes, corn and melons. Here too the Roman 
Catholic Church have a mission established with the Indians 
and have set up their claim to 640 acres of land for the 
mission, immediately below the town and extending almost 
to the river bank.''^^ 

The soil in the vicinity of The Dalles is generally a loamy 
sand, mixed with vegetable mould and decomposed rocks 
of various kinds, some of w'hich appear to contain consider- 
able quantities of alkalies, in some places so much so as to 
prevent the growth of vegetation, except a kind of wild rye 
which grows with great luxuriance where the alkalies destroy 
all the ordinary grass. This soil must hereafter become very 
rich manures for lands requiring alkalies. Potatoes, onions, 
beets, cabbage, squashes, melons, wheat, oats, peas, etc., 
have all been successfully raised here. 

The river from the head of The Cascades to this place is 
broad and sufficiently deep for the largest class of steamers 
and the current very gentle. This must be the great place 
of trade for all the upper Columbia country in all future 
time, unless a railroad should be constructed through this 
great valley to Pugets Sound, and in that event a branch 
will come down the Columbia to this place. 

At this place I find two persons who have been Baptists 
. . The same Methodist missionary circuit preacher 
who has visited The Cascades has visited this place a few- 
times the past summer. The people here desire the labors 
of a good Protestant preacher, but as yet they are entirely 
uncommitted. An efficient, common-sense minister should 



358 See note 309. 

359 This claim of the Roman Catholics was later set aside. They were, how- 
ever, allowed to retain about half an acre of ground for a building site. — Bancroft, 
Hist, of Ore., 11:292. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 455 

be placed here to labor at this place and The Cascades. He 
would occupy emphatically a missionary post which will be 
a post of observation. It will prove to the great Columbia 
Valley what St. Louis or Chicago is to the Mississippi 
Valley. True it is small now, but it will soon be the key 
to hundreds of millions of wealth and millions of souls. I 
spent two Sabbaths at this place, preached to attentive con- 
gregations and received the most cordial hospitality of the 
citizens. Will your Board send a man to The Dalles and 
for once occupy an important post first among Protestants 
— one who may be able to work by the side of Romans, who 
are doing what they can? 

I shall soon attempt to give you what information I have 
collected from Washington Ter. ; also make one more earnest 
appeal for Oregon City and other parts of the Willamette 
Valley. 

Yours as ever with high esteem, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 
Received Feb. 26. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Jan. 18th, 1855. 
To the Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Society, New York. 
Dear Brother Hill : 

I shall be obliged to draw an order on you for $200 or 
$300 in favor of Abernathy, Clarke and Co., or Josiah Failing 
& Co. at Portland, in three or four weeks, as I am now 
straitened for funds to keep up my ordinary family and 
traveling expenses. I am also expecting to hear from the 
goods, which you shipped on the Wild Ranger for San 
Francisco, by every mail and I have not the means to pay 
the freight from San Francisco to this place. I send this 
that you may have at least two weeks' notice before the 
order is presented. I gave Br. J. D. Post an order of $150 
on you sometime last summer or autumn, but have never 
heard from it since; but presume it is paid. If that is paid, 



456 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

I suppose there will be due me, after you receive my last 
report, which was made out and forwarded the first day of 
this month, about $420. I have received $13 from the Baptist 
Church in this place (Oregon City), and wish you to send 
twenty (20) copies of the Home Mission Record, twenty 
(20) copies of the American Messenger, twenty (20) copies 
of the Macedonian and one (1) copy of the Missionary 
Magazine, all postpaid, to Willi'am C. Johnson, Oregon City, 
if that amount will meet all the expenses ; if not, send equal 
numbers of the Record and Macedonian, fewer of the 
American Messenger and one copy of the Missionary Maga- 
zine and prepay the postage, applying $13 on these, no more 
and no less. Charge the same to my account. Also pay 
B. R. Soxley, Philadelphia, one dollar ($1) for Mrs. Mary 
Winston, Oregon City; also one dollar for Mrs. Rebecca 
Fanno, Portland, for the Mothers' Journal and Family 
Visitant and charge the same to my account. Will you see 
that this is promptly paid, as they wish to have their 
Mothers' Journal continued. 
Received Feb. 26. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Feb. 8th, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Society, Nassau St., 
New York. 
Dear Brother: 

I take this opportunity to write you a few lines on 
matters in general. And first, our good people in Portland 
are about making an effort to build a house for public 
worship,2^° and today the ladies of that place make a dinner 
as the first effort in furtherance of that important work. 
As they commence the work in feasting, I hope they will 
complete it in praying. The church in Oregon City have 
been employing a temporary supply, or rather receiving it, 
since I left their service last June, but are about making an 



360 The building was not actually begun until 1861. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 
1:140. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 457 

effort to secure the labors of a man in Oregon, if they can, 
and ask the Home Missionary Society to aid them in his 
support, as they feel that there is great uncertainty in 
obtaining a man soon from the States. Oh, that the Lord 
would raise up faithful laborers and send a few to our 
Pacific borders! We are in perishing need of faithful pas- 
toral labors throughout our churches. We must pray and 
try to raise up ministers in Oregon. I wish we had a well 
endowed school, manned with two or three good pious pro- 
fessors, to which we could direct our young men who desire 
to serve God with singleness of heart. But money is now 
scarce, though this is not half so alarming as the fact that 
so few of our brethren take a comprehensive view of our 
wants and the true remedy. We must educate our ministry 
on the Pacific slope, and I am beginning to think that we 
are more able than willing. But this business must be 
accomplished by "line upon line." We cannot do this work 
at once, but we must not cease doing till this is done ; then 
we shall support a pious, intelligent, efficient ministry. Our 
seat of government is removed from Salem to Corvallis, 
about thirty miles farther up the Willamette River.^" 
Corvallis was formerly called Marysville, the county seat for 
Benton County. The Territorial University is removed from 
Corvallis to Jacksonville, county seat of Jackson County. 
Now we have an able church at Corvallis and I think we 
should make immediate effort to put in operation a high 
school at that place. I shall leave tomorrow with a view of 
visiting two or three churches in that vicinity. I shall feel 
of the public pulse, as it beats through some of our leading 
men, on the subject of bringing up an educational interest 
at the seat of government. We all think an enterprise of 
this kind will in no way operate prejudicially to our school 
at Oregon City, but rather favorably. As to the question 
of your removal from the Bible house, I hope the Society 

361 The legislature of the winter of 1854-5 changed the capital from Salem to 
Corvallis and fhe university from Corvallis to Jacksonvdle The -pf 1 was re 
located at Salem late in 185S -Bancroft. Hist, of Ore II :351 352. /he legislature 
of 1855-6 repealed all acts locating the university.— F. G. Young, l-inancial Hist, 
of Ore. in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar., VIII :162. 



4S« CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

will let the good brethren in New York build you a good 
mission house, if that will end the unhappy strife.^^^ What 
is $40,000 or $100,000, as an offset to an unhappy division? 

Yours, 



EZRA FISHER. 



Received March 24. 



Oregon City, O. Ten, March 5th, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bapt. Home Mission Society. 
Dear Brother : 

About three weeks since I drew an order on you in favor 
of George Abernathy & Co. to the amount of $300. This I 
did, as I have done a few instances before, on account of 
our great distance. The long delays, after making our quar- 
terly reports, if we must first wait till we can get drafts 
from New York before we can draw on your treasury, some- 
times subject us to great inconvenience. As in the present 
case, I had ordered a year's supply of clothing for my family 
a year ago last October (I think). The bill was lost in 
the ocean ; a second order was made in about four months. 
The filling of the bill was no doubt necessarily delayed by 
the sickness of yourself and family. The goods were ship- 
ped almost a full year after the first bill was mailed at 
Oregon City, and last week I received three boxes and two 
barrels, a part only of the goods. I hope to hear from the 
balance in two or three weeks. But in this case my available 
means were used up, the money has been earned and the 
labor reported. I consequently made a draft on you, al- 
though it is out of your ordinary way of doing business. I 
trust your Board will pay the order and indulge me again 
under similar circumstances. I have received for religious 
periodicals the following sums which I wish you to pay 



362 In 1853 a serious discussion arose in the Baptist Home Mission Society 
over the acceptance from the American and Foreign Bible Society of rooms in its 
new building on Nassau Street. Friends of the "Bible Union" opposed the accept- 
ance and the trouble threatened to split the Home Mission Society. The rooms in 
the A. & F. B. S. building were occupied until 1862. — Bap. Home Mis. in N. Am., 
1832-1882, p. 543. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 459 

to the respective agents and charge the same to my account : 
For the Mothers' Journal, from Hector Campbell, one dollar; 
Mr. Campbell wishes his Journal discontinued. From Mrs. 
Olive F. D. Ogle, one dollar; Mrs. Ogle is a new subscriber; 
her post-office is Fairfield, Marion Co., O. Ter. For the Chris- 
tian Chronicle, Philadelphia, from Thomas M. Read of 
Marysville (now Corvallis), two dollars; he wishes his paper 
stopped. For the New York Recorder, from John Robin- 
son, Marysville (now Corvallis), two dollars and fifty cents. 

Respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 

March 6th. — I have just returned from a tour to the cen- 
tral part of the valley. Visited Santiam church, Corvallis 
(Marysville) church, Albany and French Prairie churches. 
Our churches seem too well contented with monthly Sab- 
baths and rest apparently satisfied with few pastoral labors 
performed among them. The result is a want of spirituality, 
too great a conformity to the world and a reliance almost 
exclusively upon special meetings for seasons of refreshings 
from the Most High. I spent some time in endeavoring to 
ascertain the state of public sentiment relative to the ex- 
pediency of establishing a school in the central part of the 
valley. All seemed desirous of seeing such a work put in 
successful operation, but as yet they have had no confer- 
ence on the subject and want some effective man to take 
the responsibility upon himself of planning and executing. 
While this is being done, the Methodists, who have already 
three high schools in the valley and one in Umpqua, will 
step into Corvallis, the only important point now to be 
occupied and raise up an important school and leave us with 
the alternative of building up a high school at some unim- 
portant post some six or eight years hence, or of raising a 
rival school at their door. Now the influence and wealth 
in the vicinity is Baptist more than any other denomination. 
The Baptists have the only house of worship in the place. 
The Methodists are making an effort to build a house of 



460 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

worship.^^^ Lest they should not be able to drive all others 
out, they obtained a charter for a high school in the place as 
early as '51. The Presbyterians are looking to the place 
for the location of a college. Their principal proprietor as- 
sured me he would give a block of lots worth about $1000 
for the site, if the Baptists would build a good high school. 
Although the people in Oregon are almost destitute of money 
and are much alarmed at the hard times, I think a building 
worth from $2000 to $3000 could be built by the Baptists the 
coming yeiar, if the brethren in the upper country would 
see their interests in their true light, without materially af- 
fecting the Oregon City College otherwise than favorably. 
You may reasonably ask. Why trouble ourselves about an- 
other school while the one at Oregon City can hardly live? 
In the absence of a good common school system, evangelical 
Christians have opened schools adapted to the wants of the 
people, employed good, pious teachers, and by these schools 
they wield a strong influence. If we remain inactive, we 
must lose our hold on the confidence of the people and be 
set down as inefficient ; besides, the sooner we can commit 
the denomination to some benevolent enterprise the better 
for them and the rising generation. They will do the more 
for other work strictly of an evangelical character. Again, 
I strongly think we must look to our churches for ou' 
rising ministry on the Pacific borders before twenty years 
roll around. The great question with me is, Ought the min- 
isters now in the field and almost worn out to give any con- 
siderable portion of their time to the cause of education, 
while so much of our field lies waste for the want of faith- 
ful. Godly ministers given wholly to preaching the Word? 

Br. Chandler baptized two converts into the French Prairie 
church Sabbath before last. 

Aflfectionately yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received April 9. 



363 The Methodists dedicated their church building in Corvallis in December, 
1856. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore., II :352. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 461 

Oregon City, O. Ter., April 1st, 1855. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as General Itinerant for 
the 4th quarter ending March 31st, 1855. I have labored 13 
weeks in this quarter; preached 15 sermons; attended 10 
prayer meetings and four church meetings ; visited religious- 
ly 45 families and other persons ; visited one common school ; 
traveled to and from my appointments 307 miles. Two were 
received into the French Prairie church by baptism under 
the labors of Rev. George C. Chandler. Sabbath schools in 
the territory are the same as last quarter. During the quar- 
ter I have distributed about 2500 pages of tracts. Several 
of our churches and congregations are beginning to study the 
Bible by subjects and meet monthly to give their views of 
the duties enjoined, such as the obligations of the Sabbath, 
the duties of religious parents, etc. The churches generally 
are training their young members as well as could be ex- 
pected where but monthly Sabbaths are enjoyed. However, 
many of the members visit from church to church, so that 
perhaps they attend Baptist meetings two Sabbaths in a 
month. The remaining time they either attend other meet- 
ings or stay at home. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., April 1, 1855. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for 
the 4th quarter ending March 31st, 1855. I have visited 
during the quarter Corvallis, Albany, Oregon City, Corvallis 
church, French Prairie church, a settlement of Baptist breth- 
ren five miles east of Albany, Lynn Co., who will soon be 



462 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

constituted into a church; a settlement of Baptists on the 
Molalla prairie, where are encouraging prospects ; Clackamas 
church and Pleasant Butte church ; traveled 307 miles to and 
from my appointments. I have labored 13 weeks during the 
quarter; preached 15 sermons; paid for traveling expenses $2, 
for postage 371/2 cents. 

N. B. — The traveling has been unusually bad this winter 
and my health, for three or four weeks of the first part of 
the quarter, was not so good as usual in the winter. This 
may account for the unusually small amount of labor I have 
performed. I have labored under the influence of bronchitis 
and dyspepsia. I have adopted a rigid system of diet and 
hope to be able to perform my wonted labors the coming 
season. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Exploring Agent. 



Oregon City, Mar. 10th, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill. 
Dear Brother: 

The church in Oregon City have invited Br. Johnson and 
Br. J. D. Post to supply them the coming year and agreed 
to give Br. Johnson $50 and Br. Post $75. Perhaps this 
is the best they could do on the whole. But it falls far short 
of meeting our wants. Br. Post's time is engrossed in his 
school and the most he can do is to preach half the Sabbaths, 
attend the weekly prayer meetings and perhaps visit a little 
Saturdays in the afternoons. Br. Johnson will preach half 
the Sabbaths, but does not contemplate visiting at all. You 
will see by this that the church must be greatly neglected 
in the pastoral relations. I hoped the cTiurch would have 
chosen some man as their pastor and asked the Home Mis- 
sionary Society to help in his support, so that he could give 
himself to the ministry, or have asked your Board to send 
them a minister and let him enter upon the work as a man 
of God. Perhaps all is for the best. I do not yet see it so. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 463 

I noticed in the January number of the Home Mission 
Record a notice of my reappointment. I shall endeavor to 
serve the Board to my best abihty through the summer and 
fall at least, if my health will permit and God blesses. I 
have received no letter from you for near three months. 
Suppose one was lost on the Southerners^'* when wrecked. I 
expect to spend most of the coming season with the churches 
in the upper part of the v'alley and in Umpqua and Rogue 
River valleys and, when in Rogue River Valley, I may cross 
the Ciscue [Siskiyou] Mountains into Chasty [Shasta] Val- 
ley, as it will be but about 25 miles from Rogue River Val- 
ley and 125 from the settlement in the Sacramento Valley. 
A large town called Yreka h'as sprung up in that valley, in 
which it is said there are numbers of Baptist members who 
have had but few Baptist sermons preached to them. 
Yreka^^^ is said to be as large as Portland. Should I visit 
Chasty Valley, or will our California brother penetrate the 
mountains from the south and explore this mining district? 
With sentiments of Christian esteem, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received April 24. 



Oregon City, O. Territory, May 3d, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bapt. Home Mission Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

Yours of March 3d has just come to hand and I now sit 
down to answer it. It is with mingled emotions that I learn 
that your Board have reappointed me to the work of ex- 
ploring agent and general itinerant. I shall endeavor in the fear 
of God to enter upon those duties to the best of my abilities, 
but in view of the gradual decline of my physical, not to say 
mental powers, I am led to hope that your Board will be 

364 The steamship "Southerner," Capt. F. A. Sampson, was wrecked on the 
Washington coast in the latter part of 1854. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore., II :341. 

365 Yreka sprang up as a result of the mining in Shasta County, California, 
which began in 1850. Important diggings opened in March, 1851, gave rise to the 
town, which was incorporated in 1854. It declined with the mines after 1857. — 
Bancroft, Hist, of Calif., VI :494. 



464 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

looking out for a man of ripe Christian experience and strong 
physical constitution to enter upon the responsibilities of this 
work after the present year. I feel th'at I have a right to 
ask for a more limited field which will call for less exposure 
in winter rains and the inconveniences of a frontier life. Yet 
I often feel that I would prefer the ways of Providence to 
those of my own choosings. I wish it to be distinctly under- 
stood by the Board that my personal inclinations have for a 
long time been to locate so that I could reach the extent of 
my field of labor by a day's ride. Should you find a suit- 
able man to enter upon this work at an earlier period than 
the expiration of the present year, I will rejoice to facilitate 
his introduction. It seems to me that the labor of such a 
man in Oregon should not be dispensed with. As it relates 
to the work of collecting for the Home Mission Society, you 
know th'at I am willing to do all that I can in the further- 
ance of that object. It is likewise true that your Society 
ought to have found more pecuniary aid flowing into your 
treasury from Oregon. Yet your servants and their fellow 
laborers have been laboring as fast as they thought the 
churches would bear to bring about this object in as healthy 
and as permanent a manner as possible. We have to meet 
all the infiuence of monthly Sabbaths and Missouri opinions, 
and an educated anti-mission influence in our missionary 
churches. These prejudices are so far worn away I believe 
in all our churches that they, as churches, recognize the 
principle that our ministry should be given to the work and 
th'at they should be sustained somehow or other in that work. 
At our last association we made a direct effort to sustain 
one man in Lane County, which was an important missionary 
field. I should at that time have pleaded the cause of the 
Home Mission Soci'ety and asked that these efiforts might 
in some way or other have gone through that channel, but 
for the fact that your Board was at the time sustaining no 
man but myself in Oregon. The right kind of work was 
doing to accomplish the work and open the sympathies of 
our brethren. The churches as a whol'e are coming up to 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 465 

the work, although much slower than is desired by every 
Hberal-souled disciple of Christ. It is hard teaching our 
brethren the lesson of being dead to the world and alive to 
God. Yet four churches, two of which were as little hope- 
ful as any in the Association, have absolutely paid their 
minister (Br. Riley) not less than $1000 the last year by 
buying him a claim and providing him with clothing and 
food for his family. Four more are paying Br. Chandler the 
present year nearly $600. And I do not know of a church, 
small as our churches are, which pays their minister less 
than $100 for one-fourth of the time, while they scarcely 
get the labors of the minister more than two days in a 
month, except in the riding to and from the appointments, 
which may take two days more. Thus you will perceive 
that your missionaries have not been indifferent to the true 
interests of Christ's church, although we have not been able 
to do so much as we would, nor to direct what is done 
through the channel which might be desired. I rejoice in the 
love of our divine Master that you have appointed two more 
missionaries for Oregon and that they are in their field of 
labor. The way is now open for me to work directly for 
you without putting on the air of supreme selfishness and, 
although we are feeling the 'effects of what the world calls 
hard times, I intend to try and do what I can for Br. Boy- 
akin at Portland and Br. Stearns^^*^ at Jacksonville by per- 
sonal appeals to private brethren, as well as by collection in 
the churches, if I can get the subject before the churches, 
and I doubt not I can. But the amount that can be done 
this year cannot be expected to be large. I have no fears 
of injuring my ministerial character in this work if God 
goes with me. My greatest fear is that I may not do the 
work as well as some other man might. We feel that we 
must make an efifort to sustain two ministers by the Associa- 
tion strictly as missionaries in destitute fields ; in this all 
our brethren will probably unite. We have the men on the 

366 This was probably Rev. M. N. Stearns, who had arrived that year from the 
East with his father, Rev. John Stearns, and was chosen pastor of the Table Rock 
(Jacksonville) Baptist Church. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:13. 



466 CORRESPODNENCE OF THE 

ground whom we may probably employ, our brethren see 
them and know them, and have an assurance that something 
will be done for them in Oregon when they pay their money. 
I have felt, in view of all the circumstances, that we should 
aid in this kind of work, and, although we cannot do the 
work in the way we would desire, we shall do much of the 
work which we should do if all prejudices were removed and 
we were doing the work precisely as you would have us do it. 
We have with us an old brother, Thomas Taylor, formerly 
from Illinois (I think he formerly was in the service of 
the Home Mission Society in 111.), who has a destitute field, 
embracing a part of Clackamas County and a part of Yam 
Hill County, in which there are a number of Baptist mem- 
bers scattered. The field locally is important, but the coun- 
try is mostly timbered, consequently slow of improvement 
comparatively. One of the points I reported last winter, 
near the mouth of the Sandy on the Columbia River. A 
year's labor would probably result in the formation of from 
one to four churches. Br. Taylor's family consists of him- 
self and wife. He says he can labor a year for $300 and 
will run the risk of raising half that sum on the field. Br. 
Chandler proposes to pay $25 of the balance. Br. Chandler 
is very desirous that he should be put into that field. Now 
will your Board make him the appointment under such con- 
ditions as you may think proper and require him to re- 
port to you and allow me to see what I can raise on the field 
for him, yet so as not to interfere with any efiforts I may 
make for Br. Boyakin and Br. Stearns? Will you leave Br. 
Taylor to consult with Br. Chandler and myself respecting 
the field? The country we propose is as densely peopled and 
as destitute as any part of Oregon and the most remote point 
not more than 24 miles from Oregon City. 

As ever your fellow-laborer in the vineyard of our common 
Master, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 467 

Oregon City, O. Ter., May 4th, 1855. 
Rev. B. M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

I some weeks since wrote you an explanation of the reason 
why I drew on you an order payable to George Abernathy 
& Co. to the amount of $300. I have all the while supposed 
from the course that you had allowed me to pursue that you 
would grant me some privileges, on account of my distance 
and the length of time it took for me to get your drafts after 
requesting you to forward them. My pay has mostly come 
in goods and exchange of money collected here. You know 
I have always waited as much as I could to suit the con- 
venience of the Society, and I trust I have not shown an un- 
usual spirit of avarice in this matter. But it would be ex- 
ceedingly mortifying to me as a prompt Christian minister in 
all my business relations to have my order protested and 
come back to Oregon so. I have never in my public life 
owed a man over $200 at any given time, and never but once 
failed of meeting my pecuniary liabilities punctually at the 
time. Now if I have sinned in drawing this draft, I have 
sinned as I have done before, unadmonished. I sincerely re- 
gret to occasion you or the Board any trouble on that ac- 
count or in any measure to occasion Abernathy to doubt 
my integrity. If your Board should protest the order, will 
they do me the favor to issue a draft in favor of me to that 
amount and pass it over to Abernathy & Co. and pay it 
immediately, as I have received the money and been obliged 
to pay out a part of it already to keep up my family. The 
remaining part is passing away in the same way. Will you 
do me the favor hereafter to settle my accounts at the end 
of each quarter, on the receipt of my quarterly report, and 
within three weeks from that time forward me a draft cov- 
ering the amount due me at the time and let this be a stand- 
ing order except when otherwise directed. 



468 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Rest assured, dear brother, that I do not make this re- 
quest through any unkind feelings. . . 

As ever yours, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 
Received June 8. 



Oregon City, O. Ten, July 1st, 1855. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. : 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society for the first quarter of 
the year, ending June 30th, as General Itinerant. 

I have labored 13 weeks in the quarter ; preached 23 ser- 
mons ; attended 12 prayer meetings, nine church covenant 
meetings ; have assisted at the organization of the church 
in the city of Portland ;^^^ have traveled to and from my 
appointments 494 miles ; have visited religiously 30 families 
and 22 individuals. The church at Portland takes her place 
beside older ones of other denominations under favorable 
prospects, as you will learn by the reports of Br. Boyakin. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
General Itinerant. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., July 1st, 1855. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. : 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for 
the first quarter ending June 30th, 1855. I have visited Port- 
land, Santiam, Providence,^^^ Pleasant Butte, Lebanon, West 
Tualatin, West Union and Yam Hill churches, the Willam- 



367 This was organized by Revs. W. F. Boyakin, H. Johnson, and the author, 
May 6, 1855. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:14. The author says there were eleven 
constituent members ; Mattoon, ten. 

368 The Providence Baptist Church in Linn County, at the forks of the San- 
tiam River, was organized April 9, 1853. — Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:12. The 
other churches mentioned have previously been commented upon. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 469 

ette Baptist Association and Ministers' meeting. 

Have collected $24.48 by collection taken on Sabbath at 
the Association. Have obtained a subscription in Tualatin 
Plains of forty bushels of wheat to be paid to Br. Boyakin 
in Portland on or before the first day in Oct., to apply on 
his salary. Br. Boyakin will report the value to you as 
soon as received. It will probably be worth from $0.75 to 
$1.00 per bushel. Paid $3.92 for traveling expenses and 
$0.25 for postage — $4.17. Have aided in the constitution of 
the first Baptist church in Portland with eleven members. 
Have preached 23 sermons and traveled to and from my 
appointments 494 miles. 

All which is respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 
Received Aug. 11. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., July 2, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

I have just returned from the annual meeting of the 
Willamette Baptist Association, which was held with the 
Yam Hill church, ten miles west of Lafayette, the seat of 
justice for Yam Hill County. As a business meeting, it ex- 
ceeded in interest and harmony all preceding meetings. The 
churches appear to be gradually arousing to the importance 
of the ministry becoming devoted to the one great calling, 
the ministry of reconciliation, and that they should be sus- 
tained in that work by the churches. Three brethren now 
in the field have the assurance that their salary from the 
churches the present year will exceed $600 each, and other 
churches are expressing a willingness to contribute accord- 
ing to their ability. The Association resolved that they 
would make an effort to sustain two missionaries the com- 
ing year, one in Lane County and vicinity and the other in 
Clackamas County and vicinity, and something over $200 



470 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

was subscribed on the spot. Resolutions were passed in favor 
of the great Christian enterprises, such as the Baptist Home 
Mission Society, PubHcation Society, etc. The changes 
in the Association were as follows : Six new churches re- 
ceived into the body.^^^ One hundred and twenty-three bap- 
tized ; net gain, 232. Some efforts were made to remove the 
school from Oregon City, which resulted in a resolution to 
open subscriptions for a college in favor of five places, to- 
wit: Oregon City, Corvallis, Santiam, Cincinnati^^° and 
Lafayette, and report next year. The Home Missionary 
Society is gradually securing the confidence of the denomi- 
nation, but while this is said, other home mission societies 
are represented in Oregon, and we cannot predict the results. 
Elder Johnson is acting as a missionary of the Free Mission 
Society, but prudently, and at this session of our Association 
we met an agent for the Bible Union soliciting life member- 
ships and offering for sale a portion of the Scriptures as 
translated by the Union, also introducing their periodicals. 
I have no objection to the Union's translating the Scriptures 
and selling them to whoever may wish to purchase. But 
we in Oregon must be wiser than our brethren at home, if 
the introduction of an agent to our little Baptist community, 
gathered from the ends of the earth, does not strike some 
discordant notes in our infant land. The Lord give us wis- 
dom and prudence equal to our day, and save us from sin- 
ning in this matter. 

As ever yours, 
Received Aug. IL EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., July 3, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. H. M. Soc. 
Dear Brother : 

I made my last quarter's report on the first instant. In 



369 These six were the Union (Polk County), Good Hope (Linn County), 
Mount Zion (Lane County), Willamette Forks (Lane County),' Palestine (Lane 
Countv), and First Portland Churches. — Minutes of Willamette Baptist Association 
and Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:16, 17. 

370 Cincinnati is the present Eola in Polk County. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 471 

this letter I wish to order you to attend to several branches 
of business for me. By this mail I shall order the discon- 
tinuance of the Christian Chronicle and substitute the New 
York Recorder and Baptist Register in its place. I shall 
also order the weekly Tribune, if it is furnished to ministers 
at $1 per year. You will therefore meet the orders which I 
send you for the payment on the above-named papers. You 
will also pay an order which I shall send you for the Baptist 
Missionary Magazine. I shall also order you to pay three 
dollars to the agent for the Mothers' Journal. 

You will, therefore, please send me a draft for the sum 
due me, after deducting twenty-four dollars and forty-eight 
cents ($24.48), the amount of the collection taken up at the 
Willamette Association, and ten dollars ($10) to meet the 
periodical demands against me, at your earliest convenience. 
Should the periodical bills exceed ten dollars, the publishers 
must wait till after I make my next quarter's report, as I 
am much in want of funds to meet my forthcoming expenses. 
Let the draft be drawn to me or order. 
Respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, July 3d, 1855. 
Rev. B. M. Hill, Cor. Sec. Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

Our school affairs are moving along but slowly. Our com- 
munity is so fluctuating, being subject to so many excite- 
ments and so many fluctuations, and so extreme, that it is 
next to impossible to keep any class of scholars above a few 
months, except a few from the more able permanent citizens. 
We have been suflPering the last twelve months all the in- 
conveniences of stagnation in business. ^''^ Farmers have 
wheat and beef and pork and butter in profusion, but it is 
hard to convert their produce into cash or family supplies. 
Now another panic has struck the farmers. New and rich 



371 These hard times are assigned by Bancroft to Indian disturbances, and to 
the falling oflf in the yield of the California mines. Business was prostrated in 
California. — Hist, of Ore., 11:337. 



472 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

gold dig-gings are beginning to be worked high up the Colum- 
bia near Fort Colville.^^^ This is drawing away the floating 
laborers, and some of the farmers are leaving their standing 
wheat for the mines. It has not yet been ascertained how 
extensive the gold field is on the Columbia, or how product- 
ive it will prove, yet nothwithstanding the high waters, in- 
experienced miners. Frenchmen and half-breeds are said to 
wash from fifteen to twenty dollars per day with nothing but 
pans. About $5000 worth of the gold has already reached 
this place and is pronounced to be gold of the finest quality. 
With these and other and varied exciting causes moving 
upon the minds of a heterogenious community thrown to- 
gether from every part of the globe, it is no strange thing 
that teachers become discouraged and eflforts to cultivate the 
minds and morals of the rising generation should prove less 
successful than in older and better graduated communities. 
Although our school has failed of exerting that direct and 
salutary influence on the denomination which was antici- 
pated, yet it has done much to elevate the views of the Bap- 
tists in Oregon and has shed its blessings, both direct and 
indirect, upon hundreds of our fellow citizens. I fear, how- 
ever, that we shall be compelled to make another change 
of teachers, however much such a change is to be dreaded. 
Br. Post has already manifested discontent and I fear that it 
may before long ripen into a removal. I do not know that 
it is possible to find a thorough, self-sacrificing teacher who 
will merge all the interests of the school into the interest of 
the denomination so as to worthily claim the name of a mis- 
sionary school teacher. Yet that should be the case with 
our teachers as well as with our home missionaries. 

Br. Boyakin is doing well at Portland, is popular with his 
church and the world. I have but little doubt that the 
Masonic fraternity^^^ sympathize with him and lend him their 



372 This gold discovery was in the spring of 1855 and caused, as the author 
indicates, the usual stampede to the diggings. — Bancroft, Hist, of Wash., Idaho and 
Mont., p. 108. 

373 The first Masonic lodge in Oregon was organized at Oregon City in 1848 
under a charter granted in 1846. By 1855 and 1856 lodges had become quite 
numerous. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore., 11:30, 415. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 473 

aid as a brother of the same order. I hope he will not over- 
rate the privileges of that order. He is energetic and elo- 
quent and abounds in figures and epithets. May God bless 
him abundantly. I expect to go south in three or four weeks. 
Shall be able to take up some collections for the Home Mis- 
sion Society. Deacon Failing has engaged to take up a col- 
lection monthly in the Portland church for the Home Mis- 
sion cause. Br. Boyakin will probably report the amount 
quarterly. 

Yours with Christian esteem, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Aug. 11. 



Oregon City, Aug. 2d, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Society. 
Dear Brother : 

Yours of May 25th was duly received. With this I shall 
send you the minutes of our Association. The new gold ex- 
citement in our territory at the present time calls for a 
communication from me. The gold region is on the large 
north fork of the Columbia River, about thirty miles above 
Fort Colville. It has now become quite certain that the 
mines are rich and they are supposed to be extensive. But 
nothing definite can be relied upon except that most of the 
French in the Willamette Valley have either been and re- 
turned and gone the second time or are preparing to go. 
Already about 1000 of the American population of the Will- 
amette Valley are on their way to these new mines. Many 
more are preparing to go ; others are anxiously awaiting the 
first reliable information. The most extravagant rumors are 
in circulation respecting the richness of the mines and the 
facilities of acquiring the golden treasures. It is pretty sat- 
isfactorily ascertained that the Roman priest at Colville has 
known of these mines for years and has enjoined secrecy 
upon the Indians. Rumors reliable say the chiefs forbid the 
Oregonians, except French and half-breeds, to dig till they 



474 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

have treated with the Indian agent for their lands. Money 
is extremely scarce in this valley and, if there is much gold 
to be had, our citizens will have their proportion of it, even 
at the price of blood. They will not stand by, by the thou- 
sands, and see French Catholics, half-breeds and Indians mo- 
nopolize the best of the diggings. Some reports say that the 
gold has been found on only two small bars of the river ; 
others say that the region of gold is 300 miles in extent. I 
have been waiting for the last two weeks to get at facts be- 
fore writing you, but this is safe at the present. Nearly 
all the lands between the Cascade Mountains and these 
mines, on both sides of the Columbia Riwer,^'^^ have been 
purchased of the Indians and now open one of the most 
inviting regions to the emigrant for settlement in North 
America. The Dalles must immediately become a point of 
importance and, should the mines prove rich and extensive, 
a point at The Dalles will Decome a second Sacramento and 
another at the Cascades, 45 miles below, will scarcely be 
less in importance. We should have a man at The Dalles at 
this moment, awake to all the interests of religion and hu- 
manity in that region. Trade is springing up at that point 
with great rapidity. The Methodist Church will undoubtedly 
have a man there in a few months. The Congregationalists 
are looking on with interest and have sent their man to sur- 
vey that field. I shall visit that place as soon as I learn 
more definitely the state of things in relation to the mines. 
Will you have a man for The Dalles and Cascades as soon 
as possible. It will cost as much to sustain a man in that 
field as it does at Portland. 

I am strongly inclined to the opinion that I shall settle as 
near the centre of middle Oregon as circumstances will 
justify, perhaps on the waters of the Walla Walla, at the close 
of this year, as a self-supporting missionary, to finish my 
days where I can be with my family and a little more ex- 
empt from responsibilities than in my present agency. But 



374 This purchase was by the treaties with the Nez Perces, Cayuses, Walla 
Wallas, Umatillas, and Yakimas, in June, 18SS, and with the John Day, Des Chutes 
and Wascopans, about the same time. — Bancroft, Hist, of Ore., 11:360-8. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 475 

I leave that in the hands of the All Wise Being to direct. 
My friends here decidedly approve of my plans. Very little 
can be done in the agency by way of collecting funds this 
summer or next, should the gold excitement prevail. Most 
of our men will go to the mines and we must preach to 
women and children and runners to and fro. If ever mis- 
sionaries needed an unction from on high, ministers and 
churches in Oregon at this time are that people. O Lord, 
give grace to thy servants to make an entire consecration to 
Thee ! 

Last Sabbath I assisted in organizing a church of eleven 
members, fifteen miles northeast from this place, between 
Clackamas and Sandy Rivers. Next week I leave for the 
upper part of this valley. Our churches generally are pass- 
ing through trials and declensions, such as are too common 
after revivals, where monthly preaching and monthly meet- 
ings take the place of weekly Sabbaths and faithful pastoral 
labors through the week. We are everywhere attempting 
to impress the churches with a sense of the importance of 
regular Sabbath preaching and constant pastoral labors, and 
not without success. Yet changes in this respect are slow, 
but will come in a few more years. I made my last quarterly 
report on the first of July and ordered you to pay for me ten 
dollars on periodicals. Also ordered you to forward me a 
draft for what will be my due, after paying those little period- 
ical accounts. I rejoice at the prospect of harmony being 
restored to the churches on the Home Mission question. 
God grant that the Bible question may soon be put to rest. 
Our Bible Union brethren will have the Bible translated into 
the English language. I hope they will do the work faith- 
fully and leave the American and Foreign Bible Society to 
prosecute her appropriate work unmolested and that the 
Peace which Christ left with the disciples may find a home in 
every church and every heart. 

Respectfully yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Sept. IL 



476 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Oregon City, O. Ten, Sept. 1st, 1855. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. : 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as General Itinerant for 
the second quarter ending Sept. 30th, 1855. 

I have labored 13 weeks; preached 21 sermons; attended 
five prayer meetings and six church covenant meetings ; two 
yearly meetings of the churches; visited religiously 34 fami- 
lies and 26 individuals ; have assisted in the organization of 
the Cedar Creek church, Clackamas County; have traveled to 
and from my appointments 818 miles. Four persons have 
been received into the La Creole church by baptism after a 
sermon I preached on the subject of communion at the re- 
quest of the pastor, Br. Riley. Monthly concert and weekly 
prayer meeting are observed in the Oregon City church. 
Connected with the churches which I have visited are small 
Sabbath schools in the Oregon City, Pleasant Butte and 
Santiam churches. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Sept. 1st, 1855. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. : 

Herein I send my report of labor under the appointment 
of the Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for the 
second quarter ending Sept. 30th, 1855. 

I have visited Oregon City, Corvallis, Cascades and The 
Dalles, Oregon City, Cedar Creek, Luckiamute,-'''^ Lebanon, 
Pleasant Butte, Santiam and Providence churches ; traveled 
to and from my appointments 818 miles ; lajbored 13 weeks. 
Have taken up the following collection : 

In the Luckiamute church, $2.00 $ 2.00 

In the Pleasant Butte church, $6.58 6.58 



375 The Luckiamute Church was organized April 1, 1854. — Mattoon, Bap. An. 
of Ore., 1:16. Luckiamute is about four miles south of Monmouth, in Polk County. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 477 

In the Santiam church, $5.80 5.80 

In Oregon City church, $6.12 6.12 

Total $20.50 

Paid for traveling expenses $16.45 

For postage 20 

Total $16.65 

which you will charge to my account. 

Preached 21 sermons ; have attended the constitution of the 
church on Cedar Creek. . . . 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER. 
N. B. — The extra traveling expenses are for a tour to The 
Dalles, which I shall make as soon as the yearly meetings 
are over this month. If I fail to go I shall deduct the 
amount in my next report. 
Received Oct. 17. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Oct. 3d, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. 
Dear Brother: 

Last Thursday I took the steamer for The Dalles and 
arrived at The Cascades about eight in the evening. Found 
The Cascades in a high state of excitement through fear of a 
nightly attack of the Yaccima [Yakima] and Clickitat 
[Klickitat] Indians, which was daily expected.^''^ About 500 
of their warriors were reported to be encamped in a plain 
about 35 or 40 miles northeast of The Cascades, who are 
said to aim at the destruction of the whites at The Cascades 
and thus cut off communication between the Willamette 
Valley and the upper country (or middle Oregon). Some 15 
whites are reported as already murdered by these tribes, 

376 This was the beginning of the Indian War of 18SS-6, which arose partly 
over dissatisfaction with the treaties of 1855, and partly over the large influx of 
whites, and which involved Eastern Oregon and nearly all of the present Washing- 
ton. — Bancroft, Hist, of Wash., Ida. and Mont., pp. 108-170. 



478 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

chiefly miners; one Indian agent is included in the number. 
Yet Indian rumors are uncertain. Suffice it to say that I 
found The Cascades mostly deserted by the women and 
children. The men had organized themselves into a military 
company for self defense. The family residing on the north 
side of the river midway between The Cascades and The 
Dalles had moved to The Dalles for safety. Thirty soldiers 
had been sent down from The Dalles to guard the house 
and outbuildings. While I lay at The Cascades an express 
came down from The Dalles making a requisition for all the 
soldiers that could be spared at Vancouver to be sent imme- 
diately to The Cascades. With this state of excitement, I 
thought little could be expected from a visit to The Dalles, 
as this warlike appearance from the Indians will seriously 
retard the settlement of the whole upper country for a year 
or two at the least. Consequently I returned without even 
spending a night on the land. 

All the Pend d' Oreille miners have returned, except a few 
French and perhaps a very few whites. About 25 or 30 
white families are settled in the vicinity of The Dalles, and 
ten or twelve more, besides some fifty or sixty French whites 
and half-breeds, are in the Walla Walla Valley in the vicinity 
of the Whitman Mission Station. Although we have some 80 
or 100 regular troops at The Dalles, these scattered families 
will be in great danger, should the Indian war become gen- 
eral with the tribes above the Cascade Mountains. O, when 
will wars cease, and men everywhere submit to the glorious 
Prince of Peace ! If I were a young man, I sometimes think 
I should delight to propagate the blessed gospel among these 
tribes and see if they could not be saved from the brutal lusts 
of outlawed whites and the Jesuital intrigues and supersti- 
tion of the Roman priests. I have but little doubt that the 
same artful teachers are at work with those Indians that were 
accessory to the Whitman massacre. O, when shall that 
great City Babylon, in whom was found the blood of the 
prophets and of saints and of all that were slain upon the 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 479 

earth, be thrown down and found no more! Oh Lord, hasten 

it in Thy time. . r .1.^ 

I shall start tomorrow for a tour m the upper part of the 
valley and propose visiting some of the feeble churches m 
Lane County, if God permits. I have nothing more that is 
new to communicate at this time, but shall communicate on 
the subject of the school in this place in a few weeks. I fear 
Br Post will set up an independent school about two miles 
from this place in the opening of the spring.^^^ But I cannot 
communicate with you officially on that subject till the com- 
mittee visit him and report to the trustees. 

Yours very affectionately, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B.— The school is now full. May God pour out His 
Holy Spirit upon it. ^ ^^^^^^ 

Received Nov. 14. 

Oregon City, O. Ter., Nov. 27th, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, D. D., 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bapt. Home Mission Society, New \ork. 

Dear Brother: ^^-^ ^. 

Yours of Sept. 1st, containing draft No. 8650, $3/6.24, was 
duly received. We here think that Br. Post has very little 
reason to complain respecting support. The school, accord- 
ing to his statement last spring, has been a paying concern 
ever since the first three weeks after he commenced teaching, 
and I am quite sure it has paid better since that time than 
it did before, if he succeeds as well in collecting as he did 
formerly. 

Private. His course with us as a board has been rather 
singular. He has from time to time avowed his intention to 
ope^'n an independent school about two miles from town. 
Last May the Board of Trustees met to take into considera- 
tion the state of the school and invited him to meet with us. 

Tn This school was opened and ran for a time just outside the present southern 
limits of Oregon City. 



480 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

The first meeting he did not attend. A committee was ap- 
pointed to wait on him and inquire into sundry reports which 
we thought unfavorable to the prosperity of the Oregon City 
College, such as the following: That he had changed the 
name of the school in his advertisements ; had proposed to 
take females as scholars, which he has since done; had pri- 
vately expressed his determination to open an independent 
school, as stated above, without consulting with any/ of the 
Trustees on the subject, and that he had announced in a 
church meeting that he did not know who the Trustees were, 
except two or three, and he did not care. The committee 
waited on him and inquired after most of these reports. He 
made some apologies and explanations. He was told that an 
attempt to set up an independent school would be injurious to 
all parties and especially to himself; that the Board of Trus- 
tees could not cherish the scheme for a moment. He agreed to 
desist from that enterprise, if the Trustees would allow him to 
reside on his land and teach in our school building. He was 
told that we did not care particularly where he resided, pro- 
vided he discharged the duties of a teacher faithfully. At 
that time he probably would have been dismissed but for Br. 
Chandler and myself. We felt that it was difficult to secure 
the labors of a competent teacher and that the Home Mis- 
sionary Society had already sent us three teachers and we 
had little hope they would send us the fourth. We, therefore, 
smothered the bursting flame and hoped he would be more 
prudent in the future. But it is probable he will open an in- 
dependent school as soon as next summer, unless he can 
again be persuaded to desist. As a teacher, with few ex- 
ceptions, we have little occasion to find fault. Yet we have 
always felt that it would have been desirable that the school 
should have made a more decidedly religious impression on 
the public mind. In view of all the circumstances, we feel 
that it is safe to treat this matter kindly till we see some 
opening in providence for action. 

As ever yours, 

EZRA FISHER. 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 481 

Oregon City, Nov. 27th, 1855. 
Rev. B. M. Hill, D. D. 
Dear Brother: 

Br. Boyakin will probably leave Portland at the close of 
the year. He has so signified in a communication to the 
church in that place. I regret much that his stay must be so 
short. I believe his plea principally is the sickness of his 
family. No doubt the town is subject to intermittent and re- 
mittent fevers during the summer and autumn, but much less 
severe than in many of the towns on the Mississippi River. 
Should he not settle at Corvallis, he will probably leave Ore- 
gon. The brethren and citizens at Corvallis appear quite 
solicitous that he should settle with them and they think 
they can raise $500 towards his salary for the first year. 
They have invited him and requested me to exert my influ- 
ence to induce him to go to that place. I shall not encourage 
a separation at Portland, but, should he conclude to go to 
Corvallis, he will need about $300, above the $500 the citizens 
propose raising him, to sustain his family. It is to be re- 
gretted that the ministers should return to the States after 
they have incurred all the expense and privations of removing 
overland to Oregon. May the Good Lord direct him and the 
little feeble band at Portland to His name's praise ! Portland 
must have a minister if practicable. 

Yours affectionately, 

EZRA FISHER. 

N. B. — At the strong solicitude of the Santiam church, I 
have consented to take the pastoral charge of that feeble, 
afiflicted band at the expiration of the current year. Elder 
Richmond Cheadle, an influential member of the church, has 
avowed his disfellowship with that church. He will probably 
join the Presbyterian Church, and with him several more may 
go. It is thought advisable by all with whom I have con- 
sulted that I should accept their invitation and, as they pro- 
pose to move my family immediately and the place will be 
more central for my winter's labors than this, I have con- 
sented to move in a few days. I shall hereafter address vou 



482 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

at Washington Butte Post-office, Linn County, O. T. You 
will still address me at this place and the letters will be 
promptly forwarded to me at Washington Butte. It is 
thought that my presence at the Santiam church may be in- 
strumental in arresting the sophistical arguments in favor of 
promiscuous communion, while I may be at home the coming 
winter. This situation was unsought and entirely unexpect- 
ed on my part, and, after much prayer on the subject, I have 
concluded that it was one of Providence's calls. The church 
is very nearly in the center of the valley and removed far 
away from most of the talent in the ministry. Should the 
Board require it, I will make up the time I shall lose in mov- 
ing, which will be but a few days, after the first of April. 
Yours in gospel bonds, 

EZRA FISHER. 
Received Jan. 15, 1856. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Nov. 28th, 1855. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, D. D., 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. : 
Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as General Itinerant for 
the third quarter ending Dec. 31st, 1855. I have labored 13 
weeks in the quarter; preached 27 sermons; attended 11 pray- 
er meetings; one yearly meeting; six church covenant meet- 
ings; visited religiously 42 families and 31 individuals; trav- 
eled to and from my appointments 660 miles. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
General Itinerant. 

P. S. — The results of the yearly meeting with the Provi- 
dence church in the forks of the Santiam and a subsequent 
meeting held in the vicinity is about 70 hopeful conversions 
and about 40 baptized. A new church constituted ; also a 
protracted meeting held on the south fork of Santiam ; some 
eight or ten baptized and a church constituted. For the last 
five months the French Prairie church have been somewhat 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 483 

revived and have had additions almost every month amount- 
ing to six or eight, and the interest still continues. This is 
in Br. Chandler's field of labor. 

Yours, EZRA FISHER. 



Oregon City, O. Ter., Nov. 28th, 1855. 
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, D. D., 

Cor. Sec. of Am. Home Mission Soc: 

Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint- 
ment of the Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for 
the third quarter ending Dec. 31st, 1855. 

I have visited Corvallis twice, Albany, Salem and Oregon 
City, Corvallis, Oregon City, French Prairie, Shilo, Santiam, 
Willamette Forks, and Palestine churches. Have labored 13 
weeks during the quarter; traveled to and from my appoint- 
ments 660 miles; have paid for traveling expenses $3.00; 
postage, 30 cents ; total $3.30. 

N. B.— Last quarter I was detained from going to The 
Dalles, consequently my traveling expenses were four dollars 
overcharged. You will therefore deduct four dollars from 
that quarter's traveling expenses, which will then read $9.25, 
instead of $13.25. 

Respectfully submitted, 

EZRA FISHER, 
Exploring Agent. 
Received Jan. 15, 1856. 

Oregon City, Oregon Ter., Nov. 29th, 1855. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bapt. Home Mission Society. 
Dear Brother: 

To accommodate Brother George C. Chandler, I have re- 
ceived of him thirty-two dollars and fifty cents ($32.50) to 
be paid to Edward H. Fletcher, 141 Nassau St., New York. 

$32.50 

Mothers' Journal, 118 Arch St., Philadelphia 5.00 



484 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

Missionary jMagazine, 33 Somerset St., Boston 3.00 

Total $40.50 

Also Alothers' Journal for Mrs. Lucy Jane G. 

Latourette 1.00 

Total $41.50 

I shall order you to pay the above in a few weeks. Deduct 
$41.50 from the amount due me on the receipt of the report 
accompanying this and forward me a draft to cover the bal- 
ance, which will then be my due, at your earliest convenience. 

EZRA FISHER. 



Soda Springs, Linn Co., O. Ten, Jan, 1st, 1856. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc, 
Baptist Mission Rooms, N. York City. 
Pay the agent for the Mothers' Journal, 118 Arch Street, 
Philadelphia, five dollars and charge the same to my account. 

EZRA FISHER. 



Soda Springs, Linn Co., O. Ter., Jan. 1st, 1856. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 
Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc, 

Baptist Mission Rooms, New York City. 
Pay the agent of the Baptist Missionary Magazine, No. 33 
Somerset Street, Boston, Mass., three dollars and charge 
the same to my account. 

EZRA FISHER. 



Washington Butte, Linn Co., Oregon, Mar. 31, 1857. 
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, 

Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. 
Dear Brother Hill : 

I now take up my long neglected pen to give you a brief 
outline of the cause of Christ in Oregon at present ; and I 
may say at once that we are all famishing under the influ- 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 485 

ence of a spiritual dearth. The results of the revivals in 
'55 and '56 are being witnessed to an alarming degree. In 
some churches, most of the converts continue to maintain a 
form of godliness; in others, more than half the number of 
those who united with the church are now walking in the 
broad road of sin, I fear, to ruin; and there are churches 
in which the wayside hearers and professors hold a still 
greater proportion. Do you ask the cause of this declension? 
I conceive it is not one but legion. Monthly Sabbaths, and 
in too many instances no Sabbaths, and visiting represent in 
a great degree all Bible reading, as well as almost all re- 
ligious reading among the youths. Sabbath school and Bible 
classes may be sustained, but it is only the few of our youths 
belonging to religious families who can be induced to become 
habitual members. Our members are in each church scat- 
tered over large districts of country, with few conveniences 
for bringing their families together on the Lord's day. Those 
who would concentrate their influence cannot without a sac- 
rifice larger than they can willingly make. 

And then the pastoral relation in the churches, beyond 
that of preaching on Saturday and Sabbath once in a month 
to a given church, and occasionally visiting the most delin- 
quent members, is merely nominal; we have but two Bap- 
tist ministers in Oregon who profess to give themselves to 
the work of the ministry, and one of them is talking of 
leaving for the States; the other is laboring at a salary of 
$300, and that from the States, while clerks' hire is from 
$600 to $2200 per annum. Our families are supported as 
Paul supported himself while laboring for the Corinthian 
Church. 

And then the question of slavery, as well as that of tem- 
perance, must needs be noted, both in and out of the church, 
as we approach the period of the adoption of a state consti- 
tution, and as we hear of the wrongs endured by the Kansas 
patriots on account of their love for the inalienable rights of 
man. A large portion of our members are from slave-holding 



486 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

states, and a larger portion are professedly opposed to slavery, 
"but all their sympathies are with the South." What a para- 
dox! 

And then, too, many of our revivals have singing as the 
instrument more than humiliation, prayer, the reading of 
the word of God and the preached word. With such a train 
of causes, what could we expect other than the sad results 
we are now witnessing through our whole territory? Is it a 
wonder, under such influences, that our best ministers should 
talk sometimes of leaving the ministry, and betake them- 
selves to teaching, as a means of procuring an honest liveli- 
hood? Ministers indeed seem willing to make great sacri- 
fices for the cause of the blessed Redeemer, and will preach 
what they can under the circumstances. But they must be- 
come secularized. Their minds will not be fruitful in word 
and doctrine, and all the blighting influences of an ignorant, 
undisciplined, disorganized ministry and churches driven by 
every wind of doctrine must be the tendency in such a state 
of things. 

Now what is to be done? Should we not have in Oregon 
at least two substantial, efficient ministers, fully sustained, 
who will approve themselves workmen not needing to be 
ashamed? Should not the Home Mission Society immediate- 
ly give us such men, either by sending us the men, or ap- 
pointing such as we have among us? 

Should your Board appoint Brother Chandler to the Ore- 
gon City church, that church would do what they could to 
help sustain him. Portland church is virtually extinct for the 
want of a suitable man. I would suggest that the second 
man be appointed to locate himself discretionarily, but at 
some important point. 

With the interest of the churc'hes, our school at Oregon 
City has suffered. Br. Post has withdrawn from that school 
and set up an independent school less than two miles from 
the building erected by the Baptists and where he formerly 
taught. His course with us has not been in harmony with 



REVEREND EZRA FISHER. 487 

the interests of the Baptists. I think I speak the sentiment 
of the whole denomination, so far as he is known, when I 
say that his whole course has seemed to be governed by his 
views of his own interest in dollars and cents. 

At present the school is taught by a son and daughter of 
Br. Hezekiah Johnson, your former missionary, and the 
school is doing as well as could be expected under the cir- 
cumstances. But we need a teacher qualified to teach the 
higher branches of mathematics and Latin and Greek, as 
well as the natural sciences. We all think such a man would 
be well sustained and patronized by the denomination and 
the citizens, if he will come to us willing to identify him- 
self with the Baptist interests. A liberal-minded man need 
feel no embarrassments on this subject. The public mind 
in Oregon seems wonderfully impressed with the thought 
that they are to have no good schools in Oregon except such as 
are under the fostering care of some religious denomination ; 
and to the evangelical churches they will look for good high 
schools till they learn effectually that the churches will not 
assume this responsibility. We might to-day have half a 
dozen flourishing high schools in Oregon, if we had the 
houses and teachers and necessary apparatus. The question 
is a grave one. Shall we as Baptists suffer these positions 
to slide over into the hands of the Methodists and Congre- 
gationalists ? Or, what is worse, leave the rising generation 
in Oregon unprovided with even the means of acquiring a 
business education, and our churches uncared for in the 
great work of raising up a living ministry in our midst? Will 
you once more send us a man for Oregon City University? 
I write officially. 

Yours truly, 

EZRA FISHER. 



INDEX 



489 



Adams County, 111., 87. 

Albany, Oregon, 338. 

American and Foreign Bible So- 
ciety, 79, 85. 

American Baptist Publication 
Society, 211, 352. 

American Bible Society, 79. 

American Sunday School Union, 
9, 51, 67. 

Amherst College, 6. 

Applegate, Jesse, 350. 

Astoria, 15, 16, 17, 172, 175, 199, 
208, 233, 280. 

Atkinson, George H., 21, 308, 336, 
375, 419. 

B. 

Bagley, Daniel, 366. 

Baptist Church at Indianapolis, 

36. 
Baptist Home Mission Society, 

7, 31. 
Banner and Pioneer, 98. 
Beatty, A. L., 111. 
Benson, A. G. and A. W., 174, 

186. 
Benton County, 339. 
Berkley, J. G., 415. 
Berry, William, 220. 
Bethany, 111., 75, 78. 
Bloomington, 10, 11, 102, 105, 107, 

120. 
Blue River, 50. 
Bond, James, 209, 217. 
Bond, Mrs., 259. 
Bowen, Jacob, 95. 
Boyakin, W. F., 448, 449, 469, 

472. 
Brabrook, Rev., 153, 155. 
Brutus, 203, 205. 
Buffalo, 34. 
Burlington, 133. 

C. 

Cadell, Mary, 253. 

California, 16, 19, 136, 206, 210, 

220, 226, 230, 235, 238, 240, 255, 

262, 270, 322. 
Callipooia, 265, 267. 
Cambridge, Vt., 7. 
Campbell, Alexander, 35, 37, 40. 
Campbell, Hector, 459. 
Campbellites, 38, 40, 48, 54, 56, 

137, 351. 
Canemah, 324, 325. 
Carolina, 296. 
Carter, Tolbert, 354. 
Cascades, 13. 

Cascade Falls, 442, 452, 477. 
Cayuse War, 218, 221, 228, 233. 
Champoeg, 346. 
Chandler, George C, 292, 307, 

320, 324, 328, 344, 345, 359, 361, 

364, 388, 392, 393, 412, 419. 
Cheadle, Richard, 20. 



Cheadle, Richmond, 295, 310, 322, 

348, 385. 
Chehalis, 379. 
Chehalem Valley, 172, 252. 
Cholera, 42. 
Cincinnati, Oregon, 303. 
City Bible Society, 216. 
Clackamas Church, 428. 
Clark Cyrus G., 147. 
Cleveland, 34. 
Coe, Nathaniel, 434. 
Coloma, 410. 
Clatsop Plains, 16, 17, 182, 253, 

270, 280. 
Columbia River, 13, 268. 
Colville, Fort, 472. 
Cone, Spencer Houghton, 317. 
Congregationalisms, 80, 263, 336, 

437. 
Connersville, 50, 65. 
Coos Bay, 404, 405. 
Cornelius, Aaron, 341. 
Corvallis, 339, 341, 342, 348, 385, 

394, 457, 481. 
Corvallis Association, 18. 
Council Bluffs, 150. 
Covington, Ind., 41. 
Cowlitz, 372. 
Cramb, A. B., 422, 440. 
Cranfill, Isom, 249. 
Crawford, Luther, 73 . 
Crawford, Medorum, 279. 
Cressey, Timothy R., 67, 68. 
Cross and Baptist Journal, 67. 
Cumberland, 52. 
Cushing, John and Caleb, 173, 

174. 

D. 

Dalles, The, 13, 25, 28, 168, SSl, 
441, 451, 455, 474, 478. 

Dare, Mary, 229, 232. 

Davenport, la., 10, 11, 101, 107, 
125, 134, 140, 154. 

Davis, W. M., 428, 445. 

Dayton, 34. 

Dedham, 5. 

Deer Creek, 405. 413. 

Des Moines, 133. 

De Vore, John F., 380. 

Da Witt, 107. 

Disciples of Christ, see Camp- 
bellites. 

Dysentery, 257. 

E. 

Ebey, I. N., 371., 380. 
Education in Oregon, 229, 236, 

243, 245, 247, 266, 267, 271, 

275, 279. 
Eells, 219. 

Elkins, Mrs. James, 24. 
Elledge, Jesse, 96. 
Ellen and Louisa, 322. 
Elliott, Rev., 134. 
Episcopalians, 334. 



490 



INDEX 



Failing, Josiah, 322, 434, 437. 

Fairmont, Rev., 52, 60. 

Fall Creek, 60, 61. 

Fisher, Aaron, 5. 

Fisher, Ann Eliza, 258. 

Fisher, Athony, 5. 

Fisher, Benjamin, 5. 

Fisher, Ezra, birth, 5; education, 
6, 7; goes to Indiana, 8; goes 
to Iowa, 10; goes to Illinois, 
11; goes to Oregon, 12; per- 
sonal apeparance, 22. 

Fisher, Francis Wayland How- 
ard, 258. 

Fisher, Lucy Jane, 258. 

Fisher, Mrs., 37; death of, 423, 
426. 

Fisher, Sara, 5. 

Fisher, Timothy, 258, 259. 

Food in early Oregon, 14, 18, 196. 

Ford, Thomas H., 95. 

Forest Grove, 28, 248, 356, 398. 

Fort Hall, 124, 219. 

Fort Laramie, 162. 

Franklin, 41, 49, 51. 

Fremont, James C, 124. 

French Prairie, 170, 249, 347. 

French Prairie Church, 329, 337. 

Franklin College, 9, 58, 72. 

Fuller, Andrew, 211. 
G. 

Galston, Captain, 199, 215, 277. 

Gary, George, 203, 205. 

Gearhart, 17. 

Going, Jonathan, 7, 31-83. 

Gold, 278, 394; discovery of, 262; 
discovered in California, 230, 
254; at Fort Colville, 472, 473; 
in Rogue River Valley, 331, 
378 

Granville, 111., 122. 

Graves, J. M., 51. 

Grayl, Roberts, 439. 

Greencastle, Ind., 41. 

Greensburg, Ind., 43. 

Griggsville, 96. 

H. 

Hall, Colonel, 255. 

Hall, E. O., 206. 

Harding, Samuel, 48, 50, 52, 56, 
64. 

Hastings party, 198. 

Hawkins, John, 43. 

Henderson, Sarah Fisher, 11. 

Henry, 199, 229. 

Hill, Benjamin, 205. 

Hill, C. M., 28. 

Hill, G. W., 28. 

Hill, Reuben C, 327, 338, 339, 
341. 

Hillsboro, 14. 

Holman, Rev., 52. 

Hood River, 453. 

Howland and Aspen-wall Com- 
pany, 408. 



Hubbard, David, 428. 

Huchins, James, 99. 

Hudson Bay Company, 193, 219, 

220. 
Hunt, Thomas Dwight, 238. 

I. 

Illinois, 71. 

Illinois Baptist Education Socie- 
ty, 78, 98. 

Illinois Sunday School Union, 78. 

Ilwaco, 280, 322. 

Immigration to Oregon, of 1846, 
198; of 1847, 214; of 1851, 328; 
of 1852, 354. 

Independence, la., 10, 150. 

Indians, 381. 

Indiana Baptist Education Socie- 
ty, 19, 158, 66. 

Indian War, 218, 220, 228; of 
1853, 417; of 1855, 477. 

Iowa, 10, 102, 135, 151, 153. 

Iowa City, 110. 

J. 

Jacksonville, 351, 359, 398, 407, 
457. 

Jeffers, J., 20, 21,. 275. 

Jeffers, Franklin, 279. 

Johnson, Hezekiah, 12, 13, 20, 21, 
22, 132, 136, 13, 142, 155, 159, 
188, 193, 225, 249, 262, 267, 275, 
282, 288, 300, 333, 335, 388, 392, 
462, 487. 

Johnson, Mary, 20. 

Johnson, W. C, 279, 426. 

K. 

Kendall, T. J., 165. 
Kilburn, Captain W. K., 199. 
Kinney, R. C, 263. 
Klamath, 244. 

L. 

La Bish, Lake, 347. 

La Creole, 338. 

La Fayette, Ind., 41. 

Land Laws, 230. 

Latourette, Ann E. Fisher, 7. 

Latourette, L. D. C, 345. 

Latourette, Lucy J. G. Fisher, 16. 

Lawrenceburg, 52. 

Lawrence, Rev., 33, 39, 40. 

Leach, Rev., 73. 

Lead, 108. 

Lebanon Church, 337, 339, 344, 

415. 
Lee County, 133. 
Leland, 434, 437. 
Lemon, Joseph, 105. 
Lenox, David T., 14, 15, 18, 144, 

166, 247. 
Lenox, Edward, 13, 255. 
Leverett, Rev., 72. 
Linn City, 318, 324. 
Linnton, 13, 247. 
Logansport, Ind., 43, 59, 65, 70. 
Luckiamute, 14, 172. 



INDEX 



491 



M. 

Marion County, Ind., 39, 329. 
Mary, 453. 

Marysville, see Corvallis. 
Massachusetts Sunday Scliool 

Society, 201. 
Masons, 472. 
Matilda, 235, 242. 
Matlock, W. T., 250, 263, 315, 325. 
Mathews, Rev., 67. 
McCarty, Nicholas, 56. 
McCoy, James, 42. 
McLoughlin, John, 13, 263. 
McMinnville College, 21, 28- 282, 

300. 
Medora, 222. 
Methodists, 34. 
Methodist Church, 20, 115 130, 

186, 195, 203, 263, 264, 334, 

365, 380, 406, 419, 437, 459. 
Mexican War, 195, 200. 
Military Tract, 82. 
Millard (Fisher) Amelia, 23. 
Mill Creek, 264, 265. 
Miller, Richard, 209, 262. 
Milwaukie, Oregon, 305, 318. 
Mollala, 20, 263, 266, 267. 
Molalla Church, 249. 
Moline, 129. 
Moore, Betty, 5. 
Morgan, Lewis, 51, 64. 
Mt. Pleasant, 111., 11. 
Muscatine, la., see Bloomington, 

N. 

National Popular Education, 296. 

National Road, 52. 

Nehama Agency, 160-163. 

Nelson, 86. 

New London Emigration Society 

Constitution, 159-161. 
Newell, George P., 303, 322. 
Newton Theological Seminary, 

7. 
Noblesville, Ind., 41, 43, 51. 

O. 

Ogle, Rev., 105. 

Oregon, 11-14, 120, 122, 124, 132- 
187; described, 211-213, 226, 
377-384. 

Oregon Baptist Education So- 
ciety, 20, 266, 267, 281-283, 286. 

Oregon City, 13, 19, 20, 22, 143, 
158, 165, 188, 193, 209, 262, 267, 
273, 277, 391, 406, 407, 431, 325, 
335, 282, 285, 292. 

Oregon City Baptist Church 
Building, 225. 

Oregon City College, 336, 352, 
363, 373, 374, 386-391, 417, 433, 
437, 439, 457, 470, 479, 480, 486, 
283, 284, 286-292, 300, 301, 304, 
305, 309, 314, 320, 323, 326, 335. 

Oregon City University, 21. 

Oregon Institute, 169, 250, 365. 

Oregon Land Law, 334. 



Oregon Land Bill, 313. 
Orr, David, 99. 
Owen County, 39. 



Pacific City, see Ilwaco. 

Parkhurst, 102, 106, 112. 

Parks, N., 78. 

Parrish Gap, 23, 24. 

Parrish, Josiah L., 381. 

Payson, 98. 

Peace Society, 55. 

Peck, J. M., 171. 

Pendleton, Ind., 51. 

Perry, M., 259. 

Pettygrove, F. W., 174. 

Pierce, T. J., 28. 

Pleasant Butte Church, 446. 

Pleasant Run, 61. 

Porter, William, 209, 249, 267. 

Portland, Oregon, 182, 296, 297, 

312, 325, 334, 393, 434, 436, 448- 

450, 456, 468. 
Portland Academy, 379. 
Port Orford, 379. 
Post, J. D., 353, 364, 375, 401, 407, 

409, 421, 433, 437, 462, 472, 479, 

480, 486. 
Presbyterians, 16, 34, 130. 
Presbyterian Church, 62, 334, 

351, 366. 
Prices, 224, 275, 278, 295, 332, 

333, 360. 
Protracted Meeting, 92, 105. 
Providence Church, 399. 
Psalmist, 215, 227. 
Puget Sound, 16, 169, 172, 185, 

209, 213, 304, 327, 330, 369, 371, 

379, 401. 

Q. 

Quincy, 111., 9, 10, 71, 73-100. 

R. 
Railroads, 80, 84, 87. 
Read, J. S., 324, 328, 343, 350, 

353, 359, 363, 368, 393, 402. 
Rees, William, 52. 
Rice, Levi A., 273, 359. 
Richardson, Wm, P., 162. 
Richmond, Nathaniel, 51, 56. 
Rickreall, 172, 207, 280. 
Riley, C. C, 439. 
Robb, James R., 21. 
Rochester, la., 112, 114. 
Rock Island, 11, 107, 126. 
Rock River, 111., 10. 
Rockville, Ind., 41, 42. 
Rodgers, Andrew, 29. 
Rogue River, 21, 331, 345, 378. 
Rogue River Valley, 403, 404, 417. 
Roman Catholic Church, 80, 118,, 

144, 145, 169, 170, 181, 195, 201, 

214, 220, 263, 282, 287, 330, 454, 

473. 
Ross, Charles L., 206, 210, 256. 
Rushville, 111., 71. 
Rexford, John, 347. 



492 



INDEX 



Salaries, 8, 12, 17, 41, 89, 90, 100, 

110, 120, 132, 152, 157, 197, 200, 

209, 216, 217, 223, 233, 278, 279, 

334, 336, 340, 341, 345, 347, 357, 

367, 370, 397, 402, 419, 448, 449, 
Salem, Ore., 19, 264, 303, 347. 

462, 465, 485. 

361, 365, 408, 447. 
Salem. Ind.. 42. 
San Diego, 27. 
Sandwich Islands, 204. 206, 222, 

240, 242. 
Sandy River, 452. 
San Francisco, 16, 206, 210, 226, 

240. 253. 
Santiam, 265, 266. 
Santiam Church. 24. 385, 421. 
Santiam River, 250, 254. 
Scottsburg, 378. 
Sedwick, George C, 67. 
Seley, Rev., 126. 
Shark, 192. 
Shasta. 331. 
Shattuck,. E. D., 417. 
Shelbyville, Ind., 50, 51, 56. 
Shiloh, 265. 
Shiloh Church. 329, 287, 339, 347, 

415, 427. 
Shiveley, Charles, 426. 
Sick Creek. 55, 66. 
Skipanon, 246. 
Slavery, 25. 485. 
Snelling, Vincent, 14, 15, 144, 162, 

207, 209, 216, 225. 248. 251, 261, 

270. 280, 296. 329, 338. 
Sodaville, 24. 
South Yamhill. 179. 
Spaulding, 219. 
Spectator, 185. 
Spencer. Ind., 39. 
Sperry, William. 24, 334, ,351, 416, 

446. 
Spokane, 219. 
Springfield, Vt, 7, 31. 
Stanford, N. B., 148. 
Stark, Beniamin, 177. 
St. Anthony Falls, 128-156. 
Stearns. M. N.. 465. 
Stevens, Thomas, 354. 385, 405. 
St. Helen, 144. 
St. .Tosenh. Mo., 12. 
Sullivan's Creek, 255. 
Sunday Schools, 36. 206, 208 217. 

232, 234, 284. 293. 297. 413. 

T. 

Taft. Lucy. 7. 
Taylor, Thomas. 466. 
Temperance, 202. 
Temrterance Societies, 55, 98. 

108. 137. 
Terwallomev River. 259. 
Texas. 10, 88, 91, 93. 96, 97. 99. 
Thompson. Lewis. 17. 202. 
Thornton, Mrs. N. M., 283, 295. 



Thurston, M., 296, 308. 

Tillamook, 379. 

Toulon, 177, 180. 

Townsend, Thomas C, 55. 

Trabne. Aaron, 96. 

Tualatin Plains, 13, 167, 179, 207, 

229, 231, 266. 
Tualatin Valley, 19. 
Tuallaty Plains, see Tualatin 

Plains. 

U. 

Umpqua, 244, 327, 331, 345, 348, 

358, 378, 404, 405. 
Umpqua River, 21. 
Undine, 19, 238, 240, 277. 
University of Oregon, 457. 



Van Brunt, Rev., 105. 
Vancouver, Wash., 267. 
Vermont Baptist State Conven- 
tion, 33. 

W. 

Wabash and Erie Canal, 80, 84, 
87. 

Waller, A. F., 381. 

Walker, 219. 

Wapsipinicon, 101. 

Wapsipinikie, 10. 

Washington Butte, 26. 

Webster's Spelling Book, 186. 

Wendell, Mass., 6. 

Weston, Rodolphus, 385, 395-397. 

West Union Church, 14, 15, 18, 
385, 395-397. 

Wheeler. O. D., 19. 

Wheeler, O. C, 261. 

Whitby's Island, 213, 379. 

Wliite, Elijah, 164. 

White River, 34. 

Wliitman, Marcus, 29 . 

Whitman Massacre, 218-220. 

Whiton, 199, 206, 216, 227. 

Wilbur. Rev.. 250. 

Willamette Baptist Association, 
18. 438. 

Willamette Valley Baptist Asso- 
ciation, 225, 229, 248. 

Willamette River, 20. 

Willamette Valley, 19, 142, 172, 
208, 262-270. 

Williams, Eliphelet, 50. 

Wilkes, Charles. 172. 

Wilmot. William S., 353. 

Winchel's Works, 47. 

Winchester. 349. 359. 

Woods. James V. A., 739. 50. 56, 
58, 59, 70. 

Wyoming, la., 102. 

Y. 

Yamhill, 266. 
Yamhill County, 15. 
Yamhill Valley, 251. 
Youngs Bay, 192. 



PRINTERS* 

\»»orti.and/ 



iii 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



017 185 179 8 



liilll 



